The fabrication of structured polymer/nanoparticle composite films through a combination of additive, subtractive and self-assemblymethodologies is investigated. Consumer grade inkjet printing hardware is employed to deposit cationic polyelectrolytes on (i) hydrophilic and (ii) hydrophobised glass substrates. The hydrophobisation process controls the spreading of the droplets and hence the late...

Over the past several years, great advances have been made towards novel drug delivery systems. The phenomena of interpolymer interactions and formation of polyelectrolyte complexes have been the focus of intensive fundamental and applied research. Interpolyelectrolyte complexes combine unique physicochemical properties with high biocompatibility. Studies have been carried out on many different...

Cell-sized polyelectrolyte capsules functionalized with a redox-driven proton pump protein were assembled for the first time. The interaction of polyelectrolyte microcapsules, fabricated by electrostatic layer-by-layer assembly, with cytochrome c oxidase molecules was investigated. We found that the cytochrome c oxidase retained its functionality, that the functionalized microcapsules interacti...

This study proposes a strategy to design tough and 3D printable marine-based hydrogels based on the synergistic complexation of phenolated polyelectrolyte complex enzyme-mediated crosslinking.

In mixtures of colloids and nonadsorbing polyelectrolytes, a Donnan potential arises across the region between surfaces that are depleted polyelectrolyte rest system. This tends to shift density profile towards colloidal surface leads local accumulation polyelectrolytes. We derive zero-field theory for disjoining pressure two parallel flat plates. Polyelectrolyte is allowed enter confined inter...

We present the first time-resolved investigation of motions of proteins in densely grafted layers of spherical polyelectrolyte brushes. Using small-angle x-ray scattering combined with rapid stopped-flow mixing, we followed the uptake of bovine serum albumin by poly(acrylic acid) layer with high spatial and temporal resolution. We find that the total amount of adsorbed protein scales with time ...

A microfluidic system was designed, fabricated and implemented to study the behavior of polyelectrolyte capsules flowing in microscale channels. The silicon component of the system contains microchannels that leads into constrictions, which were fabricated using lithography techniques. Polyelectrolyte microcapsules were also fabricated with well-known layer-by-layer assembly technique, on a sph...

Experiments have shown that DNA molecules in capillary electrophoresis migrate across field lines if a pressure gradient is applied simultaneously. We suggest that this migration results from an electrically driven flow field around the polyelectrolyte, which generates additional contributions to the center-of-mass velocity if the overall polymer conformation is asymmetric. This hypothesis lead...