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Mohamed Yunus RA, Koch M, Dieudonné-George P, Truzzolillo D, Colby RH, Parisi D. Water-Driven Sol-Gel Transition in Native Cellulose/1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium Acetate Solutions. ACS Macro Lett 2024:219-226. [PMID: 38285692 PMCID: PMC10883029 DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/31/2024]
Abstract
The addition of water to native cellulose/1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate solutions catalyzes the formation of gels, where polymer chain-chain intermolecular associations act as cross-links. However, the relationship between water content (Wc), polymer concentration (Cp), and gel strength is still missing. This study provides the fundamentals to design water-induced gels. First, the sol-gel transition occurs exclusively in entangled solutions, while in unentangled ones, intramolecular associations hamper interchain cross-linking, preventing the gel formation. In entangled systems, the addition of water has a dual impact: at low water concentrations, the gel modulus is water-independent and controlled by entanglements. As water increases, more cross-links per chain than entanglements emerge, causing the modulus of the gel to scale as Gp ∼ Cp2Wc3.0±0.2. Immersing the solutions in water yields hydrogels with noncrystalline, aggregate-rich structures. Such water-ionic liquid exchange is examined via Raman, FTIR, and WAXS. Our findings provide avenues for designing biogels with desired rheological properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roshan Akdar Mohamed Yunus
- Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Marcus Koch
- INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Campus D2 2, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Philippe Dieudonné-George
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), UMR 5221 CNRS Université de Montpellier, Montpellier 34095, France
| | - Domenico Truzzolillo
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), UMR 5221 CNRS Université de Montpellier, Montpellier 34095, France
| | - Ralph H Colby
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Daniele Parisi
- Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
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2
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Parisi D, Truzzolillo D, Slim AH, Dieudonné-George P, Narayanan S, Conrad JC, Deepak VD, Gauthier M, Vlassopoulos D. Gelation and Re-entrance in Mixtures of Soft Colloids and Linear Polymers of Equal Size. Macromolecules 2023; 56:1818-1827. [PMID: 36938509 PMCID: PMC10019458 DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c02491] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2022] [Revised: 02/02/2023] [Indexed: 02/24/2023]
Abstract
Liquid mixtures composed of colloidal particles and much smaller non-adsorbing linear homopolymers can undergo a gelation transition due to polymer-mediated depletion forces. We now show that the addition of linear polymers to suspensions of soft colloids having the same hydrodynamic size yields a liquid-to-gel-to-re-entrant liquid transition. In particular, the dynamic state diagram of 1,4-polybutadiene star-linear polymer mixtures was determined with the help of linear viscoelastic and small-angle X-ray scattering experiments. While keeping the star polymers below their nominal overlap concentration, a gel was formed upon increasing the linear polymer content. Further addition of linear chains yielded a re-entrant liquid. This unexpected behavior was rationalized by the interplay of three possible phenomena: (i) depletion interactions, driven by the size disparity between the stars and the polymer length scale which is the mesh size of its entanglement network; (ii) colloidal deswelling due to the increased osmotic pressure exerted onto the stars; and (iii) a concomitant progressive suppression of the depletion efficiency on increasing the polymer concentration due to reduced mesh size, hence a smaller range of attraction. Our results unveil an exciting new way to tailor the flow of soft colloids and highlight a largely unexplored path to engineer soft colloidal mixtures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniele Parisi
- FORTH,
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Heraklion 70013, Crete, Greece
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Product Technology, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, Groningen 9747 AG, The Netherlands
| | - Domenico Truzzolillo
- Laboratoire
Charles Coulomb (L2C), UMR 5221 CNRS Université de Montpellier, Montpellier 34095, France
| | - Ali H. Slim
- Department
of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-4004, United States
| | | | - Suresh Narayanan
- Advanced
Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, United States
| | - Jacinta C. Conrad
- Department
of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-4004, United States
| | - Vishnu D. Deepak
- Department
of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Mario Gauthier
- Department
of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Dimitris Vlassopoulos
- FORTH,
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Heraklion 70013, Crete, Greece
- Department
of Materials Science and Technology, University
of Crete, Heraklion 70013, Crete, Greece
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3
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Adherent Moving of Polymers in Spherical Confined Binary Semiflexible Ring Polymer Mixtures. BIOPHYSICA 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/biophysica2040044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Based on the coarse-grained model, we used molecular dynamics methods to calculate and simulate a semiflexible long ring–semiflexible short ring blended polymer system confined in a hard sphere. We systematically studied the distribution and motion characteristics of the long ring chain. The results show that when the short ring is short enough (Lshort < 20), the long ring (Llong = 50) is separated from the blend system and then distributed against the inner wall. As the length of the short ring increases (Lshort ≥ 20), the long ring can no longer be separated from the blending system. Moreover, we found that the long ring demonstrates a random direction of adherent walking behavior on the inner surface of the hard sphere. The velocity of the long ring decreases with the increase in the short ring length Lshort. Specifically for Lshort ≥ 20, the system does not undergo phase separation and the speed of the long ring decreases sharply along with the long ring distributed inside the confined bulk. This is related to the inner wall layer moving faster than the inside bulk of the restricted system. Our simulation results can help us to understand the distribution of macromolecules in biological systems in confined systems, including the restricted chromosome partitioning distribution and packing structure of circular DNA molecules.
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Parisi D, Camargo M, Makri K, Gauthier M, Likos CN, Vlassopoulos D. Effect of softness on glass melting and re-entrant solidification in mixtures of soft and hard colloids. J Chem Phys 2021; 155:034901. [PMID: 34293891 DOI: 10.1063/5.0055381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
We present a systematic investigation of the structure and dynamic properties of model soft-hard colloidal mixtures. Results of a coarse-grained theoretical model are contrasted with rheological data, where the soft and hard colloids are mimicked by large star polymers with high functionality as the soft component and smaller stars with ultrahigh functionality as the hard one. Previous work by us revealed the recovery of the ergodicity of glassy soft star solutions and subsequent arrested phase separation and re-entrant solid transition upon progressive addition of small hard depletants. Here, we use different components to show that a small variation in softness has a significant impact on the state diagram of such mixtures. In particular, we establish that rendering the soft component more penetrable and modifying the size ratio bring about a remarkable shift in both the phase separation region and the glass-melting line so that the region of restored ergodicity can be notably enhanced and extended to much higher star polymer concentrations than for pure systems. We further rationalize our findings by analyzing the features of the depletion interaction induced by the smaller component that result from the interplay between the size ratio and the softness of the large component. These results demonstrate the great sensitivity of the phase behavior of entropic mixtures to small changes in the molecular architecture of the soft stars and point to the importance of accounting for details of the internal microstructure of soft colloidal particles for tailoring the flow properties of soft composites.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniele Parisi
- FORTH, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, 70013 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
| | - Manuel Camargo
- CICBA & FIMEB, Universidad Antonio Nariño-Campus Farallones, Km 18 via Cali-Jamundi, 760030 Cali, Colombia
| | - Kalliopi Makri
- FORTH, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, 70013 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
| | - Mario Gauthier
- Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Christos N Likos
- Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria
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Zhou X, Guo F, Li K, He L, Zhang L. Entropy-induced Separation of Binary Semiflexible Ring Polymer Mixtures in Spherical Confinement. Polymers (Basel) 2019; 11:E1992. [PMID: 31810347 PMCID: PMC6960585 DOI: 10.3390/polym11121992] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2019] [Revised: 11/24/2019] [Accepted: 11/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the conformations of binary semiflexible ring polymers (SRPs) of two different lengths confined in a hard sphere. Segregated structures of SRPs in binary mixtures are strongly dependent upon the number density of system (ρ), the bending energy of long SRPs (Kb, long), and the chain length ratio of long to short SRPs (α). With a low ρ or a weak Kb, long at a small ratio α, long SRPs are immersed randomly in the matrix of short SRPs. As ρ and bending energy of long SRPs (Kb, long) are increased up to a certain value for a large ratio α, a nearly complete segregation between long and short SRPs is observed, which can be further characterized by the ratio of tangential and radial components of long SRPs velocity. These explicit segregated structures of the two components in spherical confinement are induced by a delicate competition between the entropic excluded volume (depletion) effects and bending contributions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaolin Zhou
- Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China; (X.Z.); (F.G.); (K.L.)
| | - Fuchen Guo
- Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China; (X.Z.); (F.G.); (K.L.)
| | - Ke Li
- Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China; (X.Z.); (F.G.); (K.L.)
| | - Linli He
- Department of Physics, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, Zhejiang, China
| | - Linxi Zhang
- Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China; (X.Z.); (F.G.); (K.L.)
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