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Gels
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Dynamics of Polymeric Gels
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Dynamics of Polymeric Gels

A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This special issue belongs to the section "Gel Analysis and Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2024 | Viewed by 2451

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Shensheng Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
Interests: polymer; simulation; colloid; molecular dynamics; gels; soft matter
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Domenico Larobina

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Polymers, Composites, and Biomaterials, National Research Council of Italy, 00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: biomaterials; fluid dynamics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Polymeric gels mark their promising roles in next-generation “smart materials” for biomedical design, soft robotics, sensors, and many other engineering applications, due to their remarkable traits of adaptivity, responsivity, and reversibility. The unique functionalities of polymeric gels are rooted in their dynamics at different length scales and under various conditions.  

This Special Issue, “The Dynamics of Polymeric Gels”, aims to collect recent advances in understanding polymeric gel dynamics. The systems of interest include broad polymeric gels, such as hydrogel, microgel, ionic polyelectrolyte gels, nanocomposite gels, etc. The topics include but are not limited to swelling/collapse dynamics of polymeric gels during volume phase transition, chain dynamics within the polymer networks, ion transport in polymeric gel networks, nanoparticle diffusion within gels, adsorption/desorption of gels at interfaces, and dynamics of polymeric gels under an external field.

This Special Issue focus on collecting research papers to address these problems using experimental/simulation/theoretical approaches. Review papers are also welcome to provide perspectives. We believe the focus of this Special Issue will shed light on our understanding of the complex behavior of gel dynamics and help the community move forward for further development of gel materials.

Dr. Shensheng Chen
Dr. Domenico Larobina
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • swelling/collapse of hydrogel
  • ion transport in polyelectrolyte gels
  • nanoparticle diffusion in gels
  • drug delivery
  • chain dynamics
  • adsorption/desorption of gels at the interface
  • microgel volume phase transition dynamics
  • responsive gels under an external field

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 4323 KiB  
Article
(N-Alkyloxalamido)-Amino Acid Amides as the Superior Thixotropic Phase Selective Gelators of Petrol and Diesel Fuels
by Nataša Šijaković Vujičić, Janja Makarević, Jasminka Popović, Zoran Štefanić and Mladen Žinić
Gels 2023, 9(11), 852; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels9110852 - 27 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1048
Abstract
(N-Alkyloxalamido)-amino acid amides 9–12 exhibit excellent gelation capacities toward some lipophilic solvents as well as toward the commercial fuels, petrol and diesel. Gelator 10 exhibits an excellent phase-selective gelation (PSG) ability and also possesses the highest gelation capacity toward [...] Read more.
(N-Alkyloxalamido)-amino acid amides 9–12 exhibit excellent gelation capacities toward some lipophilic solvents as well as toward the commercial fuels, petrol and diesel. Gelator 10 exhibits an excellent phase-selective gelation (PSG) ability and also possesses the highest gelation capacity toward petrol and diesel known to date, with minimum gelation concentration (MGC) values (%, w/v) as low as 0.012 and 0.015, respectively. The self-assembly motif of 10 in petrol and toluene gel fibres is determined from xerogel X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) data via the simulated annealing procedure (SA) implemented in the EXPO2014 program and refined using the Rietveld method. The elucidated motif is strongly supported by the NMR (NOE and variable temperature) study of 10 toluene-d8 gel. It is shown that the triple unidirectional hydrogen bonding between gelator molecules involving oxalamide and carboxamide groups, together with their very low solubility, results in the formation of gel fibres of a very high aspect ratio (d = 10–30 nm, l = 0.6–1.3 μm), resulting in the as-yet unprecedented capacity of gelling commercial fuels. Rheological measurements performed at low concentrations of 10 confirmed the strength of the self-assembled network with the desired thixotropic properties that are advantageous for multiple applications. Instantaneous phase-selective gelation was obtained at room temperature through the addition of the 10 solution to the biphasic mixture of diesel and water in which the carrier solvent was congealed along with the diesel phase. The superior gelling properties and PSG ability of 10 may be used for the development of more efficient marine and surface oil spill recovery and waste water treatment technologies as well as the development of safer fuel storage and transport technologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamics of Polymeric Gels)
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13 pages, 9164 KiB  
Article
Time-Varying Oscillatory Response of Burning Gel Fuel Droplets
by Janmejai Sharma and Ankur Miglani
Gels 2023, 9(4), 309; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels9040309 - 06 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1124
Abstract
Gel fuel droplets exhibit disruptive burning due to the rupture of their gellant shell, which causes the release of unreacted fuel vapors from the droplet interior to the flame in the form of jets. In addition to pure vaporization, this jetting allows convective [...] Read more.
Gel fuel droplets exhibit disruptive burning due to the rupture of their gellant shell, which causes the release of unreacted fuel vapors from the droplet interior to the flame in the form of jets. In addition to pure vaporization, this jetting allows convective transport for fuel vapors, which accelerates gas-phase mixing and is known to improve droplet burn rates. Using high-magnification and high-speed imaging, this study found that the viscoelastic gellant shell at the droplet surface evolves during the droplet’s lifetime, which causes the droplet to burst at different frequencies, thereby triggering a time-varying oscillatory jetting. In particular, the continuous wavelet spectra of the droplet diameter fluctuations show that the droplet bursting exhibits a nonmonotonic (hump-shaped) trend, where the bursting frequency first increases and then decreases to a point where the droplet stops oscillating. The changes in the shell structure are captured by tracking the temporal variation of the area of rupture sites, spatial movement of their centroid, and the degree of overlap between the rupture areas of successive cycles. During the initial period (immediately following its formation) when the shell is newly formed, it is weak and flexible, which causes it to burst at increasingly high frequencies. This is because the area at and around the rupture site becomes progressively weaker with each rupture in an already weak shell. This is shown by a high degree of overlap between the areas of successive ruptures. On the other hand, the shell flexibility during the initial period is demonstrated by a reversal in the motion of rupture site centroids. However, at later stages when the droplet has undergone multiple ruptures, the depletion of the fuel vapor causes accumulation of gellant on the shell, thus causing the shell to become strong and rigid. This thick, strong, and rigid shell suppresses droplet oscillations. Overall, this study provides a mechanistic understanding of how the gellant shell evolves during the combustion of a gel fuel droplet and causes the droplet to burst at different frequencies. This understanding can be used to devise gel fuel compositions that result in gellant shells with tailored properties, and therefore, control the jetting frequencies to tune droplet burn rates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamics of Polymeric Gels)
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