Related papers: Isostructural Softening of Vulcanized Nanocomposit…
Simplified silica (Zeosil 1165 MP) and SBR (140k carrying silanol end-groups) nanocomposites have been formulated by mixing of a reduced number of ingredients with respect to industrial applications. The thermo-mechanical history of the…
Short fiber reinforced polymer composites have found extensive industrial and engineering applications owing to their unique combination of low cost, relatively easy processing and superior mechanical properties compared to their parent…
Implantable hydrogels should ideally possess mechanical properties matched to the surrounding tissues to enable adequate mechanical function while regeneration occurs. This can be challenging, especially when degradable systems with high…
Reinforcement of elastomers by colloidal nanoparticles is an important application where microstructure needs to be understood - and if possible controlled - if one wishes to tune macroscopic mechanical properties. Here the…
Conducting polymers have wide technological applications in sensors, actuators, electric and optical devices, solar cells etc. To improve their operational performance, mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties, such polymers…
Graphene is one of the stiffest known materials, with a Young's modulus of 1 TPa, making it an ideal candidate for use as a reinforcement in high-performance composites. However, being a one-atom thick crystalline material, graphene poses…
Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have emerged as one of the most promising filler materials for improving the tribological performance of ceramic composites due to their outstanding solid lubricant properties as well as mechanical and thermal…
In a recent publication, we have highlighted the potential of phosphonic acid terminated PEG oligomers to functionalize strong UV absorption cerium oxide nanoparticles[1], which yield suspensions that are stable in aqueous or organic…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
Both the dispersion state of nanoparticles (NPs) within polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) and the dynamical state of the polymer altered by the presence of the NP/polymer interfaces have a strong impact on the macroscopic properties of PNCs. In…
Multilayered graphitic materials are not suitable as load-bearers due to their inherent weak interlayer bonding (for example, graphite is a solid lubricant in certain applications). This situation is largely improved when two-dimensional…
We introduced silica nanoparticles into poly ($N$,$N$-dimethylacrylamide) gel, (PDAM-NC gel), and poly (acrylamide) gel (PAM-NC gel), and carried out SAXS measurements under uniaxial elongation. It is well known that PDAM chains are…
The development of nanocomposites relies on structure-property relations, which necessitate multiscale modeling approaches. This study presents a modelling framework that exploits mesoscopic models to predict the thermal and mechanical…
Wrinkles in monolayer graphene (GN) affect the GN electronic and transport properties. Defined network of wrinkles can be reached by placing the GN on the substrate decorated with the nanoparticles (NPs). In order to explain mechanism…
The research fields of microfluidics and soft robotics both involve complex small-scale internal channel networks, embedded within a solid structure. This work examines leveraging viscous peeling as a mechanism to create and activate soft…
The effect of silica nanoparticles on transient microemulsion networks made of microemulsion droplets and telechelic copolymer molecules in water is studied, as a function of droplet size and concentration, amount of copolymer, and…
Using video-microscopy imaging we demonstrate the existence of a short-ranged equilibrium attraction between heavy silica colloids diffusing on soft surfaces of cross-linked polymer gels. The inter-colloid potential can be tuned by changing…
We report temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven de-swelling…
Nanoparticles coated with hydrophilic polymers often show a reduction in unspecific interactions with the biological environment, which improves their biocompatibility. The molecular determinants of this reduction are not very well…
We study the influence of spherical, triangular, and rod-like nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of a polymer nanocomposite (PNC), via coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. We focus on how the nanoparticle size, loading,…