The synthesis and mechanical properties of a new class of coordination polymer based materials, amorphous coordination polymer sol-gels and xerogels, is presented.

Stimuli-responsive polymers and their application to biomaterials have been widely studied. On the other hand, as a novel biomimetic polymer, we have been studying the polymer with an autonomous self-oscillating function by utilizing oscillating chemical reactions. So far, we succeeded in developing a novel self-oscillating polymer and gels by utilizing the oscillating reaction, called the Belo...

Thiol functionalization of psyllium was carried out to enhance its mucoadhesive potential. Thiolation of psyllium was achieved by esterification with thioglycolic acid. Thiolation was observed to change the surface morphology of psyllium from fibrous to granular and result in a slight increase in the crystallinity and swelling. Thiolated psyllium was found to contain 3.282 m moles of thiol grou...

Using rheometry and light scattering, we have studied the viscoelasticity of gels formed by the kinetically arrested phase separation in an emulsion-polymer mixture; to prevent the gels from collapsing under their own weight, we have used an isopycnic solvent. At constant osmotic pressure (set by the polymer concentration) and droplet volume fractionsφ well above the gelation transition, we fin...

Nanocomposite gels containing chitosan as a network polymer and chitin nanowhiskers as reinforcing fillers were prepared by cross-linking with the blocked isocyanate hexamethylene-1,6-di-(aminocarboxysulfonate) (HDS). Young’s modulus and stress at break of the nanocomposite gels increased to maximum values of 169 and 135 kPa, respectively, with increase in whisker content up to 13.3%, whereas t...