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Peters TJ, Jordan KE, Li J, Gardner K, Conchúir BÓ, Swope WC, Vassiliadis V, Johnston MA, Zaffetti P. Topological "Shape" in Micellar Dynamics. ACS OMEGA 2024; 9:16084-16088. [PMID: 38617615 PMCID: PMC11007857 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.3c09754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Revised: 03/01/2024] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/16/2024]
Abstract
For micelles, "shape" is prominent in rheological computations of fluid flow, but this "shape" is often expressed too informally to be useful for rigorous analyses. We formalize topological "shape equivalence" of micelles, both globally and locally, to enable visualization of computational fluid dynamics. Although topological methods in visualization provide significant insights into fluid flows, this opportunity has been limited by the known difficulties in creating representative geometry. We present an agile geometric algorithm to represent the micellar shape for input into fluid flow visualizations. We show that worm-like and cylindrical micelles have formally equivalent shapes, but that visualization accentuates unexplored differences. This global-local paradigm is extensible beyond micelles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas J. Peters
- Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, 371 Fairfield Way, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Kirk E. Jordan
- IBM
Research, 314 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02141, United States
| | - Ji Li
- Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, 371 Fairfield Way, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Kirk Gardner
- Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, 371 Fairfield Way, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | | | - William C. Swope
- IBM
Research, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95120, United States
| | | | | | - Peter Zaffetti
- Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, 371 Fairfield Way, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
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2
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Yang Z, Xu X, Douglas JF, Xu WS. Confinement effect of inter-arm interactions on glass formation in star polymer melts. J Chem Phys 2024; 160:044503. [PMID: 38265089 DOI: 10.1063/5.0185412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2023] [Accepted: 12/25/2023] [Indexed: 01/25/2024] Open
Abstract
We utilized molecular dynamic simulation to investigate the glass formation of star polymer melts in which the topological complexity is varied by altering the number of star arms (f). Emphasis was placed on how the "confinement effect" of repulsive inter-arm interactions within star polymers influences the thermodynamics and dynamics of star polymer melts. All the characteristic temperatures of glass formation were found to progressively increase with increasing f, but unexpectedly the fragility parameter KVFT was found to decrease with increasing f. As previously observed, stars having more than 5 or 6 arms adopt an average particle-like structure that is more contracted relative to the linear polymer size having the same mass and exhibit a strong tendency for intermolecular and intramolecular segregation. We systematically analyzed how varying f alters collective particle motion, dynamic heterogeneity, the decoupling exponent ζ phenomenologically linking the slow β- and α-relaxation times, and the thermodynamic scaling index γt. Consistent with our hypothesis that the segmental dynamics of many-arm star melts and thin supported polymer films should exhibit similar trends arising from the common feature of high local segmental confinement, we found that ζ increases considerably with increasing f, as found in supported polymer films with decreasing thickness. Furthermore, increasing f led to greatly enhanced elastic heterogeneity, and this phenomenon correlates strongly with changes in ζ and γt. Our observations should be helpful in building a more rational theoretical framework for understanding how molecular topology and geometrical confinement influence the dynamics of glass-forming materials more broadly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhenyue Yang
- State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, People's Republic of China
- Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiaolei Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, People's Republic of China
| | - Jack F Douglas
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA
| | - Wen-Sheng Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, People's Republic of China
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3
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Chremos A, Horkay F. Coexistence of Crumpling and Flat Sheet Conformations in Two-Dimensional Polymer Networks: An Understanding of Aggrecan Self-Assembly. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2023; 131:138101. [PMID: 37832020 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.131.138101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 07/12/2023] [Accepted: 09/08/2023] [Indexed: 10/15/2023]
Abstract
We investigate the conformational properties of self-avoiding two-dimensional (2D) ideal polymer networks with tunable mesh sizes as a model of self-assembled structures formed by aggrecan. Polymer networks having few branching points and large enough mesh tend to crumple, resulting in a fractal dimension of d_{f}≈2.7. The flat sheet behavior (d_{f}=2) emerges in 2D polymer networks having more branching points at large length scales; however, it coexists with crumpling conformations at intermediate length scales, a feature found in scattering profiles of aggrecan solutions. Our findings bridge the long-standing gap between theories and simulations of polymer sheets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandros Chremos
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA
| | - Ferenc Horkay
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA
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Zhang H, Wang X, Zhang J, Yu HB, Douglas JF. Approach to hyperuniformity in a metallic glass-forming material exhibiting a fragile to strong glass transition. THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL. E, SOFT MATTER 2023; 46:50. [PMID: 37380868 DOI: 10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00308-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 06/30/2023]
Abstract
We investigate a metallic glass-forming (GF) material (Al90Sm10) exhibiting a fragile-strong (FS) glass-formation by molecular dynamics simulation to better understand this highly distinctive pattern of glass-formation in which many of the usual phenomenological relations describing relaxation times and diffusion of ordinary GF liquids no longer apply, and where instead genuine thermodynamic features are observed in response functions and little thermodynamic signature is exhibited at the glass transition temperature, Tg. Given the many unexpected similarities between the thermodynamics and dynamics of this metallic GF material with water, we first focus on the anomalous static scattering in this liquid, following recent studies on water, silicon and other FS GF liquids. We quantify the "hyperuniformity index" H of our liquid, which provides a quantitative measure of molecular "jamming". To gain insight into the T-dependence and magnitude of H, we also estimate another more familiar measure of particle localization, the Debye-Waller parameter 〈u2〉 describing the mean-square particle displacement on a timescale on the order of the fast relaxation time, and we also calculate H and 〈u2〉 for heated crystalline Cu. This comparative analysis between H and 〈u2〉 for crystalline and metallic glass materials allows us to understand the critical value of H on the order of 10-3 as being analogous to the Lindemann criterion for both the melting of crystals and the "softening" of glasses. We further interpret the emergence of FS GF and liquid-liquid phase separation in this class of liquids to arise from a cooperative self-assembly process in the GF liquid.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hao Zhang
- Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada.
| | - Xinyi Wang
- Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada
| | - Jiarui Zhang
- Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada
| | - Hai-Bin Yu
- Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Jack F Douglas
- Material Measurement Laboratory, Material Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899, USA.
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5
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Shaulli X, Rivas-Barbosa R, Bergman MJ, Zhang C, Gnan N, Scheffold F, Zaccarelli E. Probing Temperature Responsivity of Microgels and Its Interplay with a Solid Surface by Super-Resolution Microscopy and Numerical Simulations. ACS NANO 2023; 17:2067-2078. [PMID: 36656959 PMCID: PMC9933603 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c07569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2022] [Accepted: 01/12/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Super-resolution microscopy has become a powerful tool to investigate the internal structure of complex colloidal and polymeric systems, such as microgels, at the nanometer scale. An interesting feature of this method is the possibility of monitoring microgel response to temperature changes in situ. However, when performing advanced microscopy experiments, interactions between the particle and the environment can be important. Often microgels are deposited on a substrate, since they have to remain still for several minutes during the experiment. This study uses direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and advanced coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate how individual microgels anchored on hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces undergo their volume phase transition with temperature. We find that, in the presence of a hydrophilic substrate, the structure of the microgel is unperturbed and the resulting density profiles quantitatively agree with simulations performed under bulk conditions. Instead, when a hydrophobic surface is used, the microgel spreads at the interface and an interesting competition between the two hydrophobic strengths,monomer-monomer vs monomer-surface,comes into play at high temperatures. The robust agreement between experiments and simulations makes the present study a fundamental step to establish this high-resolution monitoring technique as a platform for investigating more complex systems, these being either macromolecules with peculiar internal structure or nanocomplexes where molecules of interest can be encapsulated in the microgel network and controllably released with temperature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xhorxhina Shaulli
- Department
of Physics, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 3, 1700Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Rodrigo Rivas-Barbosa
- Department
of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185Roma, Italy
| | - Maxime J. Bergman
- Department
of Physics, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 3, 1700Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Chi Zhang
- Department
of Physics, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 3, 1700Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Nicoletta Gnan
- Department
of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185Roma, Italy
- CNR
Institute of Complex Systems, Uos Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185Roma, Italy
| | - Frank Scheffold
- Department
of Physics, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 3, 1700Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Emanuela Zaccarelli
- Department
of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185Roma, Italy
- CNR
Institute of Complex Systems, Uos Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185Roma, Italy
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Chremos A, Douglas JF, Basser PJ, Horkay F. Prestressed Composite Polymer Gels as a Model of the Extracellular-Matrix of Cartilage. Gels 2022; 8:707. [PMID: 36354615 PMCID: PMC9689112 DOI: 10.3390/gels8110707] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2022] [Revised: 10/27/2022] [Accepted: 10/28/2022] [Indexed: 10/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Articular cartilage is a composite hydrogel found in animal and human joints, which exhibits unique load-bearing properties that have been challenging to reproduce in synthetic materials and model in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We computationally investigate a composite hydrogel that mimics key functional properties of articular cartilage as a potential biomimetic model to investigate its unique load-bearing properties. Specifically, we find that the emergence of prestress in composite gels derives primarily from the stiffness of the polymer matrix and the asymmetry in the enthalpic interactions of the embedded particles and polymer matrix. Our MD simulations of the development of prestress agree qualitatively with osmotic pressure measurements observed in our model composite hydrogel material.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandros Chremos
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Jack F. Douglas
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA
| | - Peter J. Basser
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Ferenc Horkay
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
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Elancheliyan R, Del Monte G, Chauveau E, Sennato S, Zaccarelli E, Truzzolillo D. Role of Charge Content in the Two-Step Deswelling of Poly( N-isopropylacrylamide)-Based Microgels. Macromolecules 2022. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c00995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Rajam Elancheliyan
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221, CNRS−Université de Montpellier, F-34095 Montpellier, France
| | - Giovanni Del Monte
- National Research Council−Institute for Complex Systems (CNR-ISC), Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
- Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Edouard Chauveau
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221, CNRS−Université de Montpellier, F-34095 Montpellier, France
| | - Simona Sennato
- National Research Council−Institute for Complex Systems (CNR-ISC), Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
- Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Emanuela Zaccarelli
- National Research Council−Institute for Complex Systems (CNR-ISC), Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
- Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Domenico Truzzolillo
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221, CNRS−Université de Montpellier, F-34095 Montpellier, France
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Chremos A, Douglas JF, Basser PJ, Horkay F. Molecular dynamics study of the swelling and osmotic properties of compact nanogel particles. SOFT MATTER 2022; 18:6278-6290. [PMID: 35968626 PMCID: PMC9425154 DOI: 10.1039/d2sm00681b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Owing to their great importance in materials science and other fields, we investigate the solution and osmotic properties of uncharged compact nanogel particles over a wide range of solvent quality and particle concentration by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We characterize the osmotic pressure by estimating the second and third virial coefficients, and by extension, we identify the θ-point where the second virial coefficient vanishes. Calculations of the structure factor indicate that these particles are similar to macrogels in that the particle-like scattering profile disappears at moderate concentrations. We also find that improving the solvent quality enhances the spatial segmental uniformity, while significant heterogeneous structure arises near the θ-point. Well below the θ-point where the second osmotic virial coefficient vanishes, these heterogeneous structures become less prevalent as the particles tend to collapse. We also investigate the degree of swelling and structure of compact nanogel particles with a variable excluded volume interaction and gel particle concentration. The osmotic modulus and the scaling exponents in good and θ-point conditions of these gels are characteristic of interacting randomly branched polymers, i.e., "lattice animals".
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandros Chremos
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
| | - Jack F Douglas
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA.
| | - Peter J Basser
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
| | - Ferenc Horkay
- Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
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Zhang W, Ma Y, Posey ND, Lueckheide MJ, Prabhu VM, Douglas JF. Combined Simulation and Experimental Study of Polyampholyte Solution Properties: Effects of Charge Ratio, Hydrophobic Groups, and Polymer Concentration. Macromolecules 2022. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c00977] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Wengang Zhang
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
- Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, United States
| | - Yuanchi Ma
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
| | - Nicholas D. Posey
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
| | - Michael J. Lueckheide
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
| | - Vivek M. Prabhu
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
| | - Jack F. Douglas
- Materials Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States
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