It has been established that nerves and skeletal muscles respond and communicate via electrical signals. In regenerative medicine, there is current emphasis on using conductive nanomaterials to enhance electrical conduction through tissue-engineered scaffolds to increase cell differentiation and tissue regeneration. We investigated the role of chemically synthesized polyaniline (PANI) and poly(...

The work is based on the drying of PVDF-HFP gels with a procedure assisted by supercritical CO2 to obtain nano-sized porous membranes at high quality/low cost ratio. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as homopolymer or copolymer with hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) is a very interesting material largely used in catalytic membrane reactors, chemical and biomedical applications and various filtratio...

A new scanning probe-based microrheology approach is used to quantify the frequency-dependent viscoelastic behavior of both fibroblast cells and polymer gels. The scanning probe shape was modified using polystyrene beads for a defined surface area nondestructively deforming the sample. An extended Hertz model is introduced to measure the frequency-dependent storage and loss moduli even for thin...

Automatic repair: a polymer with pendent dibenzo[24]crown-8 units (purple in picture) was cross-linked by two bisammonium salts (green) to form two supramolecular gels based on host-guest interactions. These two gels are stimuli-responsive materials that respond to changes of the pH value and are also self-healing materials, as can be seen by eye and as evidenced by rheological data.

Elastomers and gels can be formed by interpenetrating two polymer networks on a molecular scale. This paper develops a theory to characterize the large deformation and damage of interpenetrating polymer networks. The theory integrates an interpenetrating network model with the network alteration theory. The interpenetration of one network stretches polymer chains in the other network and reduce...

Living organisms such as bacteria are able to grow, respond to stimuli, and divide as part of their life cycle. Designing smart three-dimensional (3D) materials that are able to perform such feats, i.e., continue on-demand growth and respond to external stimuli, is always a challenge for polymer and material scientists. At present, Johnson and co-workers have made a significant step forward in ...

Introduction. It has been shown in previous studies, e.g., by NMR, fluorescence photobleaching, and dynamic light scattering (DLS), that the diffusion of non-interacting probe particles in polymer solutions and gels primarily depends on the polymer concentration and the size of the probe. In interpreting these results, it is widely assumed that polymer gels behave like semi-dilute polymer solut...

Species ranging from single-cell organisms to social insects can undergo auto-chemotaxis, where the entities move towards a chemo-attractant that they themselves emit. Polymer gels undergoing the self-oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction exhibit autonomous, periodic pulsations, which produce chemical species collectively referred to as the activator. The diffusion of this activator in...

Aim: Topical drug delivery of fluconazole, an antifungal drug, in gel form was formulated to avoid the side effect of the oral route. Methodology: Different polymers; Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, Sodium alginate, Carbopol 934P, Hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, Pluronic F-127 and hydroxypropyl cellulose, were used. The compatibility of fluconazole and different gelling polymer was assessed thro...

Turbidity, structure, and rheological features during gelation via the Ugi multicomponent condensation reaction of semidilute solutions of alginate have been investigated at different polymer and cross-linker concentrations and reaction temperatures. The gelation time of the system decreased with increasing polymer and cross-linker concentrations, and a temperature rise resulted in a faster gel...