Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

0 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Super stretchable hydrogel achieved by non-aggregated spherulites with diameters <5?nm.

ABSTRACT: The scope of hydrogel applications can be greatly expanded by the improvement of mechanical properties. However, enhancement of nanocomposite hydrogels (NC gels) has been severely limited because the size of crosslinking nanoparticles is too large, at least in one dimension. Here we report a new strategy to synthesize non-aggregated spherulite nanoparticles, with diameters <5?nm, in aqueous solution, and their enhancement to hydrogel. The stress and stretch ratio at rupture of our NC gel are 430 and 121?KPa with only 40-p.p.m. nanoparticle content. The NC gel containing 200-p.p.m. nanoparticles can revert to 90% of its original size after enduring 100-MPa compressive stress. Our results demonstrate that the suppression of nanoparticle size without aggregation helps to establish a super stretchable and high-toughness hydrogel network at very low inorganic content.

SUBMITTER: Sun G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4931597 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Super stretchable hydrogel achieved by non-aggregated spherulites with diameters <5 nm.

Sun Guoxing G Li Zongjin Z Liang Rui R Weng Lu-Tao LT Zhang Lina L

Nature communications 20160629

The scope of hydrogel applications can be greatly expanded by the improvement of mechanical properties. However, enhancement of nanocomposite hydrogels (NC gels) has been severely limited because the size of crosslinking nanoparticles is too large, at least in one dimension. Here we report a new strategy to synthesize non-aggregated spherulite nanoparticles, with diameters <5 nm, in aqueous solution, and their enhancement to hydrogel. The stress and stretch ratio at rupture of our NC gel are 430 ...[more]

PMID: 27352822

Similar Datasets

Tough, stretchable and compressive alginate-based hydrogels achieved by non-covalent interactions.

Project description:In this study, two alginate-based hydrogels with good mechanical strength, toughness and resilience were synthesized by hydrophobic interaction and coordination bonding. Sodium alginate/poly(acrylamide) semi-interpenetrating network (NaAlg/PAM semi-IPN) hydrogels were first synthesized through the micelle copolymerization of acrylamide and stearyl methacrylate in the presence of sodium alginate, then calcium alginate/poly(acrylamide) double network (CaAlg/PAM DN) hydrogels were prepared by immersing the as-prepared NaAlg/PAM semi-IPN hydrogels in a CaCl2 solution. FT-IR and XPS results revealed NaAlg/PAM semi-IPN hydrogels and CaAlg/PAM DN hydrogels were successfully synthesized through non-covalent interactions. The tensile strength of CaAlg/PAM DN hydrogels could reach 733.6 kPa, and their compressive strengths at 80% strain are significantly higher than those of the corresponding NaAlg/PAM semi-IPN hydrogels, which is attributed to the alginate network crosslinked by Ca2+. The dual physically crosslinked CaAlg/PAM DN hydrogels can achieve fast self-recovery, and good fatigue resistance, which is mainly assigned to energy dissipation through dynamic reversible non-covalent interactions in both networks. The self-healing ability, swelling behavior and morphology of the synthesized alginate-based hydrogels were also evaluated. This study offers a new avenue to design and construct hydrogels with high mechanical strength, high toughness and fast self-recovery properties, which broadens the current research and application of hydrogels.

| S-EPMC9054928 | biostudies-literature

Production of polycaprolactone nanoparticles with hydrodynamic diameters below 100 nm.

Project description:Cancer is a worldwide increasing burden and its therapy is often challenging and causes severe side effects in healthy tissue. If drugs are loaded into nanoparticles, side effects can be reduced, and efficiency can be increased via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. This effect is based on the fact that nanoparticles with sizes from 10 to 200 nm can accumulate in tumor tissue due to their leaky vasculature. In this work, we produced polycaprolactone (PCL) in the sizes 1.8, 5.4, and 13.6 kDa and were able to produce spherical shaped nanoparticles with mean diameters of 64 ± 19 nm out of the PCL5.4 and 45 ± 8 nm out of the PCL13.6 reproducibly. By encapsulation of paclitaxel the diameter of that nanoparticles did not increase, and we were able to encapsulate 73 ± 7 fmol paclitaxel per 1000 particles in the PCL5.4-nanoparticles and 35 ± 8 fmol PTX per 1000 PCL13.6-nanoparticles. Furthermore, we coupled the aptamer S15 to preformed PCL5.4-nanoparticles resulting in particles with a hydrodynamic diameter of 153 nm. This offers the opportunity to use these nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery.

| S-EPMC6999587 | biostudies-literature

Fabricating nanopores with diameters of sub-1 nm to 3 nm using multilevel pulse-voltage injection.

Project description:To date, solid-state nanopores have been fabricated primarily through a focused-electronic beam via TEM. For mass production, however, a TEM beam is not suitable and an alternative fabrication method is required. Recently, a simple method for fabricating solid-state nanopores was reported by Kwok, H. et al. and used to fabricate a nanopore (down to 2 nm in size) in a membrane via dielectric breakdown. In the present study, to fabricate smaller nanopores stably--specifically with a diameter of 1 to 2 nm (which is an essential size for identifying each nucleotide)--via dielectric breakdown, a technique called "multilevel pulse-voltage injection" (MPVI) is proposed and evaluated. MPVI can generate nanopores with diameters of sub-1 nm in a 10-nm-thick Si3N4 membrane with a probability of 90%. The generated nanopores can be widened to the desired size (as high as 3 nm in diameter) with sub-nanometre precision, and the mean effective thickness of the fabricated nanopores was 3.7 nm.

| S-EPMC4028839 | biostudies-literature

Stretchable Hydrogel Electronics and Devices.

Project description:Stretchable hydrogel electronics and devices are designed by integrating stretchable conductors, functional chips, drug-delivery channels, and reservoirs into stretchable, robust, and biocompatible hydrogel matrices. Novel applications include a smart wound dressing capable of sensing the temperatures of various locations on the skin, delivering different drugs to these locations, and subsequently maintaining sustained release of drugs.

| S-EPMC4896855 | biostudies-literature

Fabrication of Cell-Laden Hydrogel Fibers with Controllable Diameters

Project description:Cell-laden hydrogel fibers are widely used as the fundamental building blocks to fabricate more complex functional three-dimensional (3D) structures that could mimic biological tissues. The control on the diameter of the hydrogel fibers is important so as to precisely construct structures in the above 3D bio-fabrication. In this paper, a pneumatic-actuated micro-extrusion system is developed to produce hydrogel fibers based on the crosslinking behavior of sodium alginate with calcium ions. Excellent uniformity has been obtained in the diameters of the fabricated hydrogel fibers as a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control algorithm is applied on the driving pressure control. More importantly, a linear relationship has been obtained between the diameter of hydrogel fiber and the driving pressure. With the help of the identified linear model, we can precisely control the diameter of the hydrogel fiber via the control of the driving pressure. The differences between the measured and designed diameters are within ±2.5%. Finally, the influence of the calcium ions on the viability of the encapsulated cells is also investigated by immersing the cell-laden hydrogel fibers into the CaCl2 bath for different periods of time. LIVE/DEAD assays show that there is little difference among the cell viabilities in each sample. Therefore, the calcium ions utilized in the fabrication process have no impact on the cells encapsulated in the hydrogel fiber. Experimental results also show that the cell viability is 83 ± 2% for each sample after 24 h of culturing.

| S-EPMC6190224 | biostudies-literature

Stretchable and self-healable hydrogel artificial skin.

Project description:Hydrogels have emerged as promising materials for the construction of skin-like mechanical sensors. The common design of hydrogel-based artificial skin requires a dielectric sandwiched between two hydrogel layers for capacitive sensing. However, such a planar configuration limits the sensitivity, stretchability and self-healing properties. Here, we report the design of single-layer composite hydrogels with bulk capacitive junctions as mechanical sensors. We engineer dielectric peptide-coated graphene (PCG) to serve as homogenously dispersed electric double layers in hydrogels. Any mechanical motions that alter the microscopic distributions of PCG in the hydrogels can significantly change the overall capacitance. We use peptide self-assembly to render strong yet dynamic interfacial interactions between the hydrogel network and graphene. The resulting hydrogels can be stretched up to 77 times their original length and self-heal in a few minutes. The devices can effectively sense strain and pressure in both air and aqueous environments, providing tremendous opportunities for next-generation iontronics.

| S-EPMC9375542 | biostudies-literature

Highly Stretchable, Strain Sensing Hydrogel Optical Fibers.

Project description:A core-clad fiber made of elastic, tough hydrogels is highly stretchable while guiding light. Fluorescent dyes are easily doped into the hydrogel fiber by diffusion. When stretched, the transmission spectrum of the fiber is altered, enabling the strain to be measured and also its location.

| S-EPMC5148684 | biostudies-literature

Direct observation of heterogeneous formation of amyloid spherulites in real-time by super-resolution microscopy

Project description:Protein misfolding in the form of fibrils or spherulites is involved in a spectrum of pathological abnormalities. Our current understanding of protein aggregation mechanisms has primarily relied on the use of spectrometric methods to determine the average growth rates and diffraction-limited microscopes with low temporal resolution to observe the large-scale morphologies of intermediates. We developed a REal-time kinetics via binding and Photobleaching LOcalization Microscopy (REPLOM) super-resolution method to directly observe and quantify the existence and abundance of diverse aggregate morphologies of human insulin, below the diffraction limit and extract their heterogeneous growth kinetics. Our results revealed that even the growth of microscopically identical aggregates, e.g., amyloid spherulites, may follow distinct pathways. Specifically, spherulites do not exclusively grow isotropically but, surprisingly, may also grow anisotropically, following similar pathways as reported for minerals and polymers. Combining our technique with machine learning approaches, we associated growth rates to specific morphological transitions and provided energy barriers and the energy landscape at the level of single aggregate morphology. Our unifying framework for the detection and analysis of spherulite growth can be extended to other self-assembled systems characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, disentangling the broad spectrum of diverse morphologies at the single-molecule level. Real-time super-resolution microscopy analysis reveals the growth kinetics, morphology, and abundance of human insulin amyloid spherulites with different growth pathways.

| S-EPMC9392779 | biostudies-literature

Self-Healable and 4D Printable Hydrogel for Stretchable Electronics.

Project description:Materials with high stretchability and conductivity are used to fabricate stretchable electronics. Self-healing capability and four-dimensional (4D) printability are becoming increasingly important for these materials to facilitate their recovery from damage and endow them with stimuli-response properties. However, it remains challenging to design a single material that combines these four strengths. Here, a dually crosslinked hydrogel is developed by combining a covalently crosslinked acrylic acid (AAC) network and Fe3+ ions through dynamic and reversible ionically crosslinked coordination. The remarkable electrical sensitivity (a gauge factor of 3.93 under a strain of 1500%), superior stretchability (a fracture strain up to 1700%), self-healing ability (a healing efficiency of 88% and 97% for the mechanical and electrical properties, respectively), and 4D printability of the hydrogel are demonstrated by constructing a strain sensor, a two-dimensional touch panel, and shape-morphing structures with water-responsive behavior. The hydrogel demonstrates vast potential for applications in stretchable electronics.

| S-EPMC10987146 | biostudies-literature

Stretchable Gold Nanomembrane Electrode with Ionic Hydrogel Skin-Adhesive Properties.

Project description:Skin has a dynamic surface and offers essential information through biological signals originating from internal organs, blood vessels, and muscles. Soft and stretchable bioelectronics can be used in wearable machines for long-term stability and to continuously obtain distinct bio-signals in conjunction with repeated expansion and contraction with physical activities. While monitoring bio-signals, the electrode and skin must be firmly attached for high signal quality. Furthermore, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) should be high enough, and accordingly, the ionic conductivity of an adhesive hydrogel needs to be improved. Here, we used a chitosan-alginate-chitosan (CAC) triple hydrogel layer as an interface between the electrodes and the skin to enhance ionic conductivity and skin adhesiveness and to minimize the mechanical mismatch. For development, thermoplastic elastomer Styrene-Ethylene-Butylene-Styrene (SEBS) dissolved in toluene was used as a substrate, and gold nanomembranes were thermally evaporated on SEBS. Subsequently, CAC triple layers were drop-casted onto the gold surface one by one and dried successively. Lastly, to demonstrate the performance of our electrodes, a human electrocardiogram signal was monitored. The electrodes coupled with our CAC triple hydrogel layer showed high SNR with clear PQRST peaks.

| S-EPMC10537659 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data