School of Textile Science and Engineering, Xi'an Polytechnic University, Xi'an, China.
Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 15;12(1):12157. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-16414-w.
Amongst colloidal gels, those designed by the assembly of anisotropic colloidal particles tend to form fibrillar gels and are attracting interest as artificial cell growth environments since they have a structure reminiscent of biological extracellular matrices. Their properties can be tuned by controlling the size, shape, and rigidity of the nanoparticles used during their formation. Herein, the relationship between the physical and mechanical properties of the nanocolloidal building blocks and the properties of the resulting gels is investigated. Thermoresponsive particles with different aspect ratios and controlled rigidity were prepared, and the gelation and the properties of the resulting gels were studied. The results show how the aspect ratio and rigidity of polymer colloids tune the properties of the gels. An increase in the aspect ratio of the nanocolloid used led to a sol-gel transition observed at lower particle concentration, but an increase in the rigidity of the nanocolloids delayed the sol-gel transition to higher concentration. However, at a constant concentration, increases in the anisotropy produced gels with higher modulus and lower yield strain. Similarly, an increase in rigidity of the colloids increased the modulus and reduced the yield strain of the resulting gels.
在胶体凝胶中，由各向异性胶体颗粒组装而成的胶体凝胶往往会形成纤维状凝胶，由于其结构类似于生物细胞外基质，因此作为人工细胞生长环境引起了人们的兴趣。通过控制形成过程中纳米粒子的尺寸、形状和刚性，可以调整其性能。本文研究了纳米胶体构建块的物理和力学性能与所得凝胶性能之间的关系。制备了具有不同纵横比和可控刚性的温敏颗粒，并研究了其凝胶化和所得凝胶的性能。结果表明，聚合物胶体的纵横比和刚性如何调节凝胶的性能。使用的纳米胶体的纵横比增加会导致在较低的颗粒浓度下观察到溶胶-凝胶转变，但纳米胶体的刚性增加会延迟溶胶-凝胶转变至更高的浓度。然而，在恒定浓度下，各向异性的增加会产生具有更高模量和更低屈服应变的凝胶。同样，胶体刚性的增加会提高所得凝胶的模量并降低其屈服应变。
