Related papers: Characterizing hydrogel behavior under compression…
The mechanisms of flow in suspensions of soft particles above the glass-transition volume fraction and in the jammed state were probed using Orthogonal Superposition Rheometry (OSR). A small amplitude oscillatory shear flow is superimposed…
Ionic microgel particles in a good solvent swell to an equilibrium size determined by a balance of electrostatic and elastic forces. When crowded, ionic microgels deswell owing to a redistribution of microions inside and outside the…
Hydrogels are attractive and versatile gel-based structures consisting of three-dimensional networks of hydrophilic polymers with unique properties that can retain a large amount of water and be tailor-designed according to specific…
Acid-induced release of stored ions from polyacrylic acid hydrogels (with a free surface fully permeable to the ion and acid flux) was observed to increase the gel osmotic pressure that leads to rapid, temporary swelling faster than the…
Predicting the mechanical response of the soft gel materials under external deformation is of paramount importance in many areas, such as foods, pharmaceuticals, solid-liquid separations, cosmetics, aerogels and drug delivery. Most of the…
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…
Tough adhesive hydrogels find broad applications in engineering and medicine. Such hydrogels feature high resistance against both cohesion and adhesion failure. The superior fracture properties may, however, deteriorate when the hydrogels…
This paper presents FoamFactor, a novel material with tunable stiffness and compressibility between hydration states, and a tailored pipeline to design and fabricate artifacts consisting of it. This technique compounds hydrogel with…
The elastic properties of granular hydrogels are commonly characterised under wet conditions, yet the influence of capillary interactions remains unclear. In practical applications, hydrogels operate in aqueous environments containing…
Hydrogels are increasingly recognized as a versatile platform for applications spanning from tissue engineering to soft robotics or flexible electronics. Recent efforts have focused on enhancing and tailoring their mechanical performance to…
Hydrogels behave as viscoelastic soft solids and display a porous microstructure filled with water with typical amounts of 90\%~w/w or more. As such, these materials are highly sensitive to water loss through evaporation, which impacts…
Coulomb repulsion between the unevenly-bound bonding and nonbonding electron pairs in the O:H-O hydrogen-bond is shown to originate the anomalies of ice under compression. Consistency between experimental observations, density functional…
We investigated the actuation performances of anisotropic gels driven by mechanical and chemical stimuli, in terms of both deformation processes and stroke--curves, and distinguished between the fast response of gels before diffusion starts…
Hydrogels have a distinct combination of mechanical and water-transport behaviors. As hydrogels stiffen, they become less permeable. Here, we combine semi-dilute polymer theory with the Kozeny-Carman equation to develop a simple scaling law…
Hydrogel coatings absorb water vapor - or other solvents - and, as such, are good candidates for antifog applications. In the present study, the transfer of vapor from the atmosphere to hydrogel thin films is measured in a situation where…
We conducted experiments to directionally freeze agar hydrogel drops with different polymer concentrations, on a copper substrate maintained at low temperature. Unlike the water droplet studied in the literature, where the liquid part can…
In the scientific literature little attention has been given to the use of dynamic light scattering (DLS) as a tool for extracting the thermodynamic information contained in the absolute intensity of light scattered by gels. In this article…
Coulomb repulsion between the unevenly-bounded bonding "-" and nonbonding ":" electron pairs in the "O2- : H+/p-O2-" hydrogen-bond is found to originate the anomalies of low-compressibility, phonon relaxation dynamics, proton symmetrization…
Subjected to compressive stresses, soft polymers with stiffness gradients can display various buckling patterns. These compressive stresses can have different origins, like mechanical forces, temperature changes, or, for hydrogel materials,…
Thermosensitive microgels are widely studied hybrid systems combining properties of polymers and colloidal particles in a unique way. Due to their complex morphology their interactions and packing, and consequentially the viscoelastcity of…