Publications associées à Mechanical Reinforcement of Hydrogels through Physical Crosslinks and Double Network Granular Architecture

Localized Ionic Reinforcement of Double Network Granular Hydrogels

Nature produces soft materials with fascinating combinations of mechanical properties. For example, the mussel byssus embodies a combination of stiffness and toughness, a feature that is unmatched by synthetic hydrogels. Key to enabling these excellent mec ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

Engineering hydrogel microenvironments for epithelial organoid culture

Antonius Chrisnandy

Organoids, miniature tissues generated from self-organizing stem cells within three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrices (ECM), have opened up exciting possibilities for in vitro studies of complex physiological processes. A key factor in the success of ...

EPFL2024

Highly anisotropic carbon fiber electrodes for DEAs and their dynamic non-monotonic conductive properties

Yves Perriard, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Markus Koenigsdorff

A common method for creating compliant electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and soft sensors is to incorporate electrically conductive carbon particles into a polymer matrix. However, using unidirectional aligned carbon fibers instead not o ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

From Surfactants to 3D Printing: How Ion-Chelator Pair Interactions Affect the Mechanical Properties of Bioinspired Materials

Gaia De Angelis

The remarkable adaptability observed in marine ecosystems has often inspired researchers when developing new soft materials. The research undertaken in this thesis explores how ion chelator pair interactions influence the mechanical properties of bioinspir ...

EPFL2024

Enhancing Chondrocyte Biosynthetic Activities: Harnessing the Power of Loading-Induced Evolved Temperature

Theofanis Stampoultzis

Chondrocytes within articular cartilage possess the capacity to perceive and react to signals generated by the typical load-bearing actions of daily life, such as walking or running. Articular cartilage is predominantly oriented toward compression-based fu ...

EPFL2024

Valence can control the nonexponential viscoelastic relaxation of multivalent reversible gels

Hugo Camille Valentin Le Roy

Gels made of telechelic polymers connected by reversible cross-linkers are a versatile design platform for biocompatible viscoelastic materials. Their linear response to a step strain displays a fast, near-exponential relaxation when using low-valence cros ...

Amer Assoc Advancement Science2024

Recent Advances in Alginate-Based Hydrogels for Cell Transplantation Applications

Sandrine Gerber, François Rémi Pierre Noverraz, Alireza Kavand

With its exceptional biocompatibility, alginate emerged as a highly promising biomaterial for a large range of applications in regenerative medicine. Whether in the form of microparticles, injectable hydrogels, rigid scaffolds, or bioinks, alginate provide ...

2024

Controlling the Microstructure and Composition of 3D Printed Soft Load-Bearing Hydrogels

Matteo Hirsch

Hydrogels are among the first materials expressly designed for their use in biomedicine. However, state-of-the-art applications of hydrogels are severely limited because they are typically either too soft or too brittle such that they cannot bear significa ...

EPFL2023

Supramolecular Modifications of Semicrystalline Polymers

Michael Alan Giffin

Supramolecular interactions play an important role in defining the structure and the resulting mechanical properties of materials. For instance, interchain hydrogen-bonding in PAs gives them superior strength and stiffness in engineering materials, while t ...

EPFL2023

Acetal-Stabilized Carbohydrates as Novel Platform Molecules for Renewable Polymer Production

Lorenz Perry Manker

To address the rising demand for plastics, it is essential to create new types of polymers that are both highly recyclable and emit minimal amounts of greenhouse gases. These plastics should be derived from readily available, renewable feedstocks. Such eff ...

EPFL2023

Biocompatible and Biodegradable 3D Printing from Bioplastics: A Review

Sandro Carrara

There has been a lot of interest in developing and producing biodegradable polymers to address the current environmental problem caused by the continued usage of synthetic polymers derived from petroleum products. Bioplastics have been identified as a poss ...

MDPI2023

4D printing of Metal-Reinforced double network granular hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Qinghua Guan, Livia D'Onofrio

Recent developments in soft actuation demand for resilient, responsive materials with locally varying compositions that are sufficiently stiff to exhibit significant actuation forces. Hydrogels are inherently responsive to certain stimuli. Yet, they typica ...

2023

Rheological Properties of Ionically Crosslinked Viscoelastic 2D Films vs. Corresponding 3D Bulk Hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Gaia De Angelis

Ionically crosslinked hydrogels containing metal coordination motifs have piqued the interest of researchers in recent decades due to their self-healing and adhesive properties. In particular, catechol-functionalized bulk hydrogels have received a lot of a ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

A guide to preclinical evaluation of hydrogel-based devices for treatment of cartilage lesions

Dominique Pioletti, Peyman Karami, Theofanis Stampoultzis, Yanheng Guo

The drive to develop cartilage implants for the treatment of major defects in the musculoskeletal sys-tem has resulted in a major research thrust towards developing biomaterial devices for cartilage repair. Investigational devices for the restoration of ar ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Semiconductor-based device architectures in multimaterial fibers

William Nicolas Duncan Esposito

Semiconductor materials have given rise to today's digital technology and consumer electronics. Widespread adoption is closely linked to the ability to process and integrate them in devices at scale. Where flexibility and large surfaces are required, such ...

EPFL2023

Revealing the complexity of ultra-soft hydrogel re-swelling inside the brain

Stéphanie Lacour, Michael Shur, John Martin Kolinski, Outman Akouissi, Olivier Didier Christian Rizzo

The brain is an ultra-soft viscoelastic matrix. Sub-kPa hydrogels match the brain's mechanical properties but are challenging to manipulate in an implantable format. We propose a simple fabrication and processing sequence, consisting of de-hydration, patte ...

2023

On-Demand Cross-Linkable Bottlebrush Polymers for Voltage- Driven Artificial Muscles

Frank Nüesch, Francis Owusu, Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) generate motion resembling natural muscles in reliability, adaptability, elongation, and frequency of operation. They are highly attractive in implantable soft robots or artificial organs. However, many applications of ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Fast Self-Assembly Dynamics of a beta-Sheet Peptide Soft Material

Sandor Kasas, Charlotte Martin

Peptide-based hydrogels are promising biocompatible materials for wound healing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering applications. The physical properties of these nanostructured materials depend strongly on the morphology of the gel network. However, th ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2023

Bottlebrush Dielectric Elastomers with Improved Properties for Actuation

Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are elastic capacitors composed of a pair of compliant electrodes and a soft dielectric elastomer film sandwiched in between. This kind of stretchable capacitors can be actuated when charged, can generate electricity fr ...

EPFL2023

A multi-material robotic finger with integrated proprioceptive and tactile capabilities produced with a circular process

Antonia Georgopoulou Papadonikolaki, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

When developing or designing biomimetic robotic fingers with rigid and soft components and integrated sensors, fabrication is often a bottle-neck when assembling and casting processing techniques are used. This study introduces a thermoplastic multi-materi ...

IEEE2023