Porous starch materials with various morphology and properties were made via dissolution, retrogradation drying either supercritical CO2 (“aerogels”) or lyophilisation (“cryogels”). Their correlated the rheological response of retrograded gels crystallinity aerogels cryogels. All cryogels possess very low density (0.07 – 0.16 g/cm3), large macropores specific surface area (around 3–13 m2/g). is...

An in-depth investigation into the synthesis of hydrophobic silica aerogels prepared by the surface derivatization of wet gels followed by subsequent drying at ambient pressure is reported. The following sol-gel parameters were examined for their effect on the physical properties of the derived aerogels: number of gel washings with water, percentage of hexane or methanol in silylating mixture, ...

Terpyridine based ligands 1 and 2, decorated with a C8F17 perfluorinated tag, are able to form stable thermoreversible gels in the presence of several d-block metal chloride salts. The gel systems obtained have been characterized by NMR, X-ray diffraction, electron microscopies and Tgel experiments in order to gain insights into the observed different behaviour of the two similar ligands, also ...

Hydrogels and aerogels are two typical families of gels, classified according to the medium they encompass, that is, water and air, respectively. Hydrogels have not only pervaded our everyday life in a variety of forms (e.g., fruit jellies, toothpaste, contact lenses, and hair gel), but have also been extensively explored as functional soft materials for use in various scientific fields. Replac...

A new class of organic-inorganic hybrid aerogels having small pores and narrow pore size distribution are synthesized from well-dispersed clay platelets in water as base catalyst. Clay-catalyzed organic gels have strong advantage in controlling nanopore structure as well as reducing drying shrinkage by reinforcing the organic network with inorganic platelets.

Thermoreversible hydrogels are widely used in foods, drug delivery and tissue engineering. Novel shapes/textures out of them being increasingly fabricated using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) type 3D printing, where gels extruded layer-by-layer above their gelling temperature followed by cooling. It is crucial to develop a library suitable materials optimise printing conditions ensure good pr...

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) treatments of a montmorillonite (MMT) intercalated with ammonium cations bearing two long hydrocarbon tails (organo-modified MMT, OMMT) led to OMMT exfoliation, with loss of the long-range order in the packing of the hydrocarbon tails and maintenance of the long-range order in the clay layers. The intercalated and the derived exfoliated OMMT have been deeply...

We evaluated pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) induced by new formulations of tramadol (TR) in thermoreversible gels. The poloxamer- (PL-) tramadol systems were prepared by direct dispersion of the drug in solutions with PL 407 and PL 188. The evaluated formulations were as follows: F1: TR 2% in aqueous solution and F2: PL 407 (20%) + PL 188 (10%) + TR 2%; F3: PL 407 (25%) + PL 18...