Related papers: Polymeric Solvents Control Swelling-Induced Surfac…
Biomolecules, such as proteins and RNAs, can phase separate in the cytoplasm of cells to form biomolecular condensates. Such condensates are liquid-like droplets that can wet biological surfaces such as membranes. Many molecules that…
Hydrogel consists of a crosslinked polymer matrix imbibed with a solvent such as water at volume fractions that can exceed 90\%. They are important in many scientific and engineering applications due to their tunable physiochemical…
The interaction between two adjacent charged surfaces immersed in aqueous solution is known to be affected by charge regulation - the modulation of surface charge as two charged surfaces approach each other. This phenomenon is particularly…
As solute molecules permeate into a vesicle due to a concentration difference across its membrane, the vesicle swells through osmosis. The swelling can be divided into two stages: (a) an "ironing" stage, where the volume-to-area ratio of…
We investigate the linear viscoelasticity of polymer gels produced by the dispersion of gluten proteins in water:ethanol binary mixtures with various ethanol contents, from pure water to 60% v/v ethanol. We show that the complex…
Liquid wetting of a surface is omnipresent in nature and the advance of micro-fabrication and assembly techniques in recent years offers increasing ability to control this phenomenon. Here, we identify how surface roughness influences the…
It is demonstrated that polymers sticking out of the surface of a neutral hydrogel are capable of preventing adhesive forces from pulling a hydrogel into close contact with a surface against which it is pressed. The proposed mechanism for…
We study the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in thermoresponsive polymer solutions by means of a coarse grained single polymer chain simulation and a theoretical approach. The simulation model includes solvent explicitly and thus…
Surface-bound electric charge on polymer materials can strongly influence droplet behaviour and solid-liquid charge transfer, but the mechanisms and the means to control these effects remain unclear. In this work, we systematically…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles that, when dispersed in a solvent, swell and deswell in response to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, concentration, and $p$H. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we model bulk…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
The behavior of cross-linking polymer solutions as they transition from liquid-like to solid-like material in flow determines success or failure in several applications. Dilute polymer solutions flow easily, while concentrated polymers or…
The statistical theory of polymers tethered around the inner surface of a cylindrical channel has traditionally employed the assumption that the equilibrium density of the polymers is independent of the azimuthal coordinate. However,…
Experimental and modelling study is presented for the effect of a wide range of liquid viscosities on the droplet impact on a smooth solid surface at atmospheric pressure. A non-monotonic variation of threshold between droplet deposition…
A number of recent experiments have showed that surfactants can modify the growth mode of an epitaxial film, suppressing islanding and promoting layer-by-layer growth. Here a set of coupled equations are introduced to describe the coupling…
The non-equilibrium distribution of colloids in a polymer solution under a temperature gradient is studied experimentally. A slight increase of local temperature by a focused laser drives the colloids towards the hot region, resulting in…
Despite decades of research, the question of whether solutions and melts of highly entangled polymers exhibit shear banding as their steady state response to a steadily imposed shear flow remains controversial. From a theoretical viewpoint,…
Recent work has highlighted roles for thermodynamic phase behavior in diverse cellular processes. Proteins and nucleic acids can phase separate into three-dimensional liquid droplets in the cytoplasm and nucleus and the plasma membrane of…
Freezing of polymer solutions has been extensively investigated from many aspects, especially the complex pattern formation. The cell/dendrite micro-structures are believed to be in the type of diffusion-induced M-S instability. However,…
We present the first analytic theory with elegant and closed-form analytical solutions to explore the cosolvency effect in polymer brushes, where polymer chains that are poorly soluble in two pure solvents become fully soluble in certain…