Parallel effects of cations on PNIPAM graft wettability and PNIPAM solubility

Thermoresponsive Skin-like Fabric for Personal Comfort and Protection

Acting as a "second skin", clothing plays an indispensable role in providing comfort and protection in the wide range of environments in which we live. However, comfort and protection are often competing requirements and are difficult to improve simultaneously. By mimicking the exceptional thermoresponsive one-way liquid transport property of human skin, here we developed a scalable and ecofriendly skin-like fabric that has a tunable directional water transport rate while having excellent water repellency. The water transport rate is also temperature-responsive, just like skin. As the temperature increases, the wettability gradient in the spatially distributed channels (acting like "sweat glands") increases, promoting sweat transport and evaporative heat dissipation. As the temperature decreases, on the other hand, the wettability gradient diminishes, reducing liquid transport and evaporative heat loss, thereby promoting heat retention. The fabric is highly suitable for sportswear and functional clothing and can have wider applications, such as oil-water separation, fog harvesting, etc.

A solar/radiative cooling dual-regulation smart window based on shape-morphing kirigami structures

The energy efficiency of buildings has become a critical issue due to their substantial contribution to global energy consumption. Windows, in particular, are often the least efficient component of the building envelope, and conventional smart windows focus solely on regulating solar transmittance while overlooking radiative cooling. Although several recent designs achieved dual-control of solar and radiative cooling, these windows still face limitations in terms of durability, limited modulation ability and energy-saving performance. To address these challenges, we propose a novel dual-control smart window design consisting of a reconfigurable kirigami structure and polydimethylsiloxane-laminated thermochromic hydrogel coated with silver nanowires. In summer, the thermochromic hydrogel turns translucent to suppress the solar heat gain, while the high emissivity kirigami structure covers the exterior surface of the window, promoting radiative cooling. In winter, the hydrogel becomes transparent to allow for solar transmission. Additionally, the kirigami structure undergoes an out-of-plane structural change, opening towards the outside environment to expose the underlying low-emissivity silver nanowires and suppress heat radiation. Our design achieves a promising solar transmittance modulation ability of ∼24% and a good long-wave infrared emissivity regulation ability of 0.5. Furthermore, it exhibits significantly improved durability, which is nine times longer than the lifespan of conventional smart hydrogels. Our novel approach offers a promising solution for constructing energy-efficient and durable smart windows and outperforms existing state-of-the-art solar/radiative cooling dual-regulation smart windows in the literature.

A Metal Ion and Thermal-Responsive Bilayer Hydrogel Actuator Achieved by the Asymmetric Osmotic Flow of Water between Two Layers under Stimuli

Shape-morphing hydrogels have drawn great attention due to their wide applications as soft actuators, while asymmetric responsive shape-morphing behavior upon encountering external stimuli is fundamental for the development of hydrogel actuators. Therefore, in this work, bilayer hydrogels were prepared and the shrinkage ratios (LA/LN) of the AAm/AAc layer to the NIPAM layer immersed in different metal ion solutions, leading to bending in different directions, were investigated. The difference in the shrinkage ratio was attributed to the synergistic effect of the osmolarity difference between the inside and outside of the hydrogels and the interaction difference between the ion and hydrogel polymer chains. Additionally, under thermal stimuli, the hydrogel actuator would bend toward the NIPAM layer due to the shrinkage of the hydrogel networks caused by the hydrophilic–hydrophobic phase transition of NIPAM blocks above the LCST. This indicates that metal ion and thermal-responsive shape-morphing hydrogel actuators with good mechanical properties could be used as metal ion or temperature-controllable switches or other smart devices.

Multi-responsive poly N-isopropylacrylamide/poly N-tert-butylacrylamide nanocomposite hydrogel with the ability to be adsorbed on the chitosan film as an active antibacterial material

Nanocomposite hydrogel composed of Poly N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAM), poly N-tert-Butylacrylamide (PBAM) and poly acrylic acid (PAA) was synthesized by free radical polymerization, and then thymol was embedded in it, to design an active antibacterial material that could control release. The characterization of products used SEM, AFM, FTIR, Zeta sizer to analyze the sensitivity of nanoparticles to pH, temperature and salt ions, and the agar diffusion method was used to determine the antibacterial effect of the polymers. The results showed that nanoparticles had pH, temperature and salt ion responsiveness, PNIPAM/PBAM (65:35) nanoparticles loaded thymol had longer release time (more than 24 h) at lower temperature than that (around 6 h) at high temperature. In addition, the nanoparticles could also be adsorbed on the chitosan film, which makes it have a wider range of applications. All thymol-loaded nanoparticles showed antibacterial activity against both B. subtilis and E. coli, while the chitosan film adsorbed nanoparticles showed weak effect, which was related to the controlled and slow release of bacteriostatic agents. Thus, these copolymers have potential value in the development and application of bacteriostatic packaging films for food.

Physically Switchable Antimicrobial Surfaces and Coatings: General Concept and Recent Achievements

Bacterial environmental colonization and subsequent biofilm formation on surfaces represents a significant and alarming problem in various fields, ranging from contamination of medical devices up to safe food packaging. Therefore, the development of surfaces resistant to bacterial colonization is a challenging and actively solved task. In this field, the current promising direction is the design and creation of nanostructured smart surfaces with on-demand activated amicrobial protection. Various surface activation methods have been described recently. In this review article, we focused on the "physical" activation of nanostructured surfaces. In the first part of the review, we briefly describe the basic principles and common approaches of external stimulus application and surface activation, including the temperature-, light-, electric- or magnetic-field-based surface triggering, as well as mechanically induced surface antimicrobial protection. In the latter part, the recent achievements in the field of smart antimicrobial surfaces with physical activation are discussed, with special attention on multiresponsive or multifunctional physically activated coatings. In particular, we mainly discussed the multistimuli surface triggering, which ensures a better degree of surface properties control, as well as simultaneous utilization of several strategies for surface protection, based on a principally different mechanism of antimicrobial action. We also mentioned several recent trends, including the development of the to-detect and to-kill hybrid approach, which ensures the surface activation in a right place at a right time.

Anion Specificity Effects on the Interfacial Aggregation Behavior of Poly(lauryl acrylate)-block-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)

Aggregation behavior of an amphiphilic diblock copolymer poly(lauryl acrylate)-block-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PLA-b-PNIPAM) on neutral aqueous subphases with different salt species and salt concentrations, as well as the structures of its Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films, were systematically studied. The presence of NaCl or Na₂SO₄ in subphases makes PNIPAM chains shrink on the water surface and reduce their solubility underwater. On the contrary, the presence of NaNO₃ or NaSCN makes PNIPAM chains more stretched on water and increase their solubility underwater, whose stretch degree and solubility both increase with the increase of salt concentration. Solubility of PNIPAM chains in the above subphase solutions is ranked as NaSCN ≫ NaNO₃ > pure H₂O > NaCl ≈ Na₂SO₄, which is almost consistent with the Hofmeister series except for the latter two close cases. All the initial LB films of PLA-b-PNIPAM exhibit tiny isolated circular micelles. Upon compression, the LB films in the case of pure H₂O exhibit the dense mixed structures of circular micelles and wormlike aggregates. The formation of wormlike aggregates is due to connection of some adjoining cores, which is less possible in other subphase cases because of the conformation difference of PNIPAM chains.

Synthesis and functionalisation of mesoporous materials for transparent coatings and organic dye adsorption

The novel synthesis and functionalisation of mesoporous materials, which can be used to fabricate transparent hydrophobic coatings with temperature-sensitive surface properties, and also show excellent adsorption behavior to Rhodamine B dye in water.

Ion-specificity in protein binding and recovery for the responsive hydrophobic poly(vinylcaprolactam) ligand

The conformational switch between the hydrophobic state and hydrophilic state of thermo-responsive poly(vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL) has great potential for protein purification as a hydrophobic interaction chromatography ligand.

The architecture of responsive polymeric ligands on protein binding and recovery

Ligand design and optimization are critical for protein purification during downstream processing.

High-sensitivity stimuli-responsive polysiloxane synthesized via catalyst-free aza-Michael addition for ibuprofen loading and controlled release

High-sensitive stimuli-responsive polysiloxanes with high sensitive respond to three changes of thermo-, pH-, and salinity were synthesized via a facile, highly efficient, catalyst-free aza-Michael addition of poly(aminopropylmethylsiloxane) with N-isopropylacrylamide.

Influence of imidazolium based green solvents on volume phase transition temperature of crosslinked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) hydrogel

The volume phase transition temperature (VPTT) of crosslinked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (PNIPAM-co-AA) hydrogel in water in the presence of five imidazolium based ionic liquids (ILs) was studied. The VPTT of PNIPAM-co-AA hydrogel can be modulated to different extents by the addition of different amounts of ILs. The modulations in VPTT values can be attributed to the IL-induced alterations in hydrophobic, hydrophilic and hydrogen bonding interactions of PNIPAM-co-AA hydrogel with the neighboring solvent and molecular chains. The influence of ILs having a common cation, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium cation ([Bmim]) and different anions, such as iodide (I-), tetrafluoroborate (BF4-), chloride (Cl-), acetate (CH3COO-) and hydrogen sulfate (HSO4-), on the phase transition of PNIPAM-co-AA hydrogel was monitored by the aid of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Furthermore, the interfacial properties between aqueous IL and polymer surface were scrutinized with the help of contact angle (CA) measurements. The overall specific ranking of ILs in preserving the hydration layer around the PNIPAM-co-AA hydrogel in water was [Bmim][I]>[Bmim][BF4]>[Bmim][Cl]>[Bmim][Ac]>[Bmim][HSO4]. The trend of these ILs followed the well-known Hofmeister series. Interestingly, the PNIPAM-co-AA hydrogel in water shows abnormal salting-out property in the presence of [Bmim][BF4] at higher concentration and this abnormal behavior can be explained based on the lack of sufficient binding sites on the macromolecule for higher number of [Bmim][BF4] at a higher concentration.

Solute- and temperature-responsive "smart" grafts and supported membranes formed by covalent layer-by-layer assembly

Polymers like poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) exhibit lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. A variety of reports have shown that brush grafts of PNIPAM on surfaces exhibit similar temperature responsiveness. We recently described an alternative synthetic approach to such surfaces that affords surfaces with similar LCST-like behavior. We also noted how such surfaces' wettability can change in response to the identity and concentration of solutes. Here we show that this synthetic procedure can be extended to glass surfaces and to more complex surfaces present in porous glass frits. Functionalized glass surfaces exhibit solute-dependent wetting behavior analogous to that previously reported. We further show that the resulting responsive nanocomposite grafts on such frits exhibit "smart" responsive permeability with a greater than 1000-fold difference in permeability to water versus aqueous solutions of sodium sulfate. This "smart" permeability is ascribed to the solute-dependent wettability behavior of the responsive PNIPAM component of the nanocomposite graft, which is sensitive both to the identity and concentration of the solute anion and to temperature.

Effect of host-guest interactions on the cloud points of neutral thermosensitive homopolymers: poly(N-n-propylmethacrylamide) and polymers with similar structures

We investigated effect of cyclodextrins (CDs) on the cloud point of several thermosensitive polymers that are not ionizable. α-CD increased the cloud point of the poly(N-n-propylmethacrylamide) (PnPMAm) aqueous solution; by contrast, β-CD or γ-CD did not affect the cloud point of the PnPMAm solution. The cloud point of the PnPMAm solution increased gradually with an increase in the concentration of α-CD. Furthermore, we compared the effect of the CDs on the cloud points of four polymers with similar structures. As for poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PiPAAm), neither α-CD nor β-CD affected its cloud point. On the basis of the effect of the differently sized CDs on the cloud point of five polymers and the corresponding NOESY NMR data, we inferred that steric hindrance by the main chain of PiPAAm might be responsible for the bulky CD being unable to form a complex with the short isopropyl group.

Antifouling coatings: recent developments in the design of surfaces that prevent fouling by proteins, bacteria, and marine organisms

The major strategies for designing surfaces that prevent fouling due to proteins, bacteria, and marine organisms are reviewed. Biofouling is of great concern in numerous applications ranging from biosensors to biomedical implants and devices, and from food packaging to industrial and marine equipment. The two major approaches to combat surface fouling are based on either preventing biofoulants from attaching or degrading them. One of the key strategies for imparting adhesion resistance involves the functionalization of surfaces with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) or oligo(ethylene glycol). Several alternatives to PEG-based coatings have also been designed over the past decade. While protein-resistant coatings may also resist bacterial attachment and subsequent biofilm formation, in order to overcome the fouling-mediated risk of bacterial infection it is highly desirable to design coatings that are bactericidal. Traditional techniques involve the design of coatings that release biocidal agents, including antibiotics, quaternary ammonium salts (QAS), and silver, into the surrounding aqueous environment. However, the emergence of antibiotic- and silver-resistant pathogenic strains has necessitated the development of alternative strategies. Therefore, other techniques based on the use of polycations, enzymes, nanomaterials, and photoactive agents are being investigated. With regard to marine antifouling coatings, restrictions on the use of biocide-releasing coatings have made the generation of nontoxic antifouling surfaces more important. While considerable progress has been made in the design of antifouling coatings, ongoing research in this area should result in the development of even better antifouling materials in the future.