Vinod Appu, Tadmor Rafael, Katoshevski David, Gutmark Ephraim J
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Gels. 2023 Jul 7;9(7):555. doi: 10.3390/gels9070555.
Mucus is a critical part of the human body's immune system that traps and carries away various particulates such as anthropogenic pollutants, pollen, viruses, etc. Various synthetic hydrogels have been developed to mimic mucus, using different polymers as their backbones. Common to these simulants is a three-dimensional gel network that is physically crosslinked and is capable of loosely entrapping water within. Two of the challenges in mimicking mucus using synthetic hydrogels include the need to mimic the rheological properties of the mucus and its ability to capture particulates (its adhesion mechanism). In this paper, we review the existing mucus simulants and discuss their rheological, adhesive, and tribological properties. We show that most, but not all, simulants indeed mimic the rheological properties of the mucus; like mucus, most hydrogel mucus simulants reviewed here demonstrated a higher storage modulus than its loss modulus, and their values are in the range of that found in mucus. However, only one mimics the adhesive properties of the mucus (which are critical for the ability of mucus to capture particulates), Polyvinyl alcohol-Borax hydrogel.
黏液是人体免疫系统的重要组成部分，它能捕获并带走各种微粒，如人为污染物、花粉、病毒等。人们已开发出各种合成水凝胶来模拟黏液，使用不同的聚合物作为其骨架。这些模拟物的共同特点是具有三维凝胶网络，该网络通过物理交联形成，能够在内部松散地截留水分。使用合成水凝胶模拟黏液面临的两个挑战包括需要模拟黏液的流变学特性及其捕获微粒的能力（其黏附机制）。在本文中，我们综述了现有的黏液模拟物，并讨论了它们的流变学、黏附性和摩擦学特性。我们发现，大多数（但并非全部）模拟物确实能模拟黏液的流变学特性；与黏液一样，这里综述的大多数水凝胶黏液模拟物的储能模量高于损耗模量，其数值在黏液的范围内。然而，只有一种模拟物能模拟黏液的黏附特性（这对黏液捕获微粒的能力至关重要），即聚乙烯醇 - 硼砂水凝胶。
