Association of C 3 -symmetric pyrene- and naphthalene diimide-based derivatives afforded gels through aromatic interactions. The corresponding (xero)gels displayed original spectroscopic features in comparison to the one-component materials.

Flexible solid-state zinc-air batteries (ZABs) generally suffer from poor electrolyte/electrode contact and mechanical degradation in practical applications. In addition, CO2 corrosion is also a common issue for ZABs with alkaline electrolyte. Herein, we report thermoreversible hydrogel electrolyte that can simultaneously solve the aforementioned problems. Through simple cooling process, transf...

Soy protein isolate (SPI) was incubated with microbial transglutaminase (MTG) enzyme for 5 (SPI/ MTG(5)) or 24 (SPI/MTG(24)) h at 40 C and the gel obtained was freeze-dried, and heated with 2% (w/v) ribose (R) for 2 h at 95 C to produce combined-treated gels. Control experiments were run with sucrose. Stress relaxation experiments indicated that combined-treated gels were higher in the compress...

residual microorganisms in the root canal system (rcs) after endodontic therapy such as candida albicans are a major cause of endodontic failure. calcium hydroxide (ch) and chlorhexidine (chx) have suitable antimicrobial activity against bacteria and can be used as intracanal medicaments. nanosilver has also shown antimicrobial activity against microorganisms. this study aimed to compare the an...

During traditional acupuncture, fine needles are inserted subcutaneously and rotated, which causes loose fascial tissue to wind around the needle. This coupling is stronger at acupuncture points, which tend to fall above intermuscular fascial planes, than control points, which lay above skeletal muscle. These different anatomical constraints may affect the mechanical coupling. Fascia at acupunc...

Recently, polymer gels have drawn much attention as scaffolds for regenerative medicines, soft actuators, and functional membranes. These applications need tough and robust polymer gels as represented by the double network gels. To fully understand this mechanism and develop further advanced polymer gels, we need to fully understand the molecular origin of fracture energy for conventional polym...

We describe a protocol to cast nondenaturing polyacrylamide gradient gels (SFBR3/31) for the size resolution of lipoproteins. The protocol yields gels with minimal lot-to-lot variation in length and electrophoretic properties. Absorbance profiles of cholesterol-stained lipoproteins in baboon sera were used to estimate the relative amounts of stain in four lipoprotein size classes (VLDL+LDL, HDL...

We studied the effects of extracellular matrix components on fibroblast contraction of hydrated collagen gels. After 4-h incubations, heparin-containing collagen gels contracted only 10% compared with 50% contraction of control gels. Contraction was not affected by hyaluronic acid, dermatan sulfate, or fibronectin, implying that the activity of heparin was specific. The possibility that heparin...

We report on the microstructure and mechanical properties (elastic modulus) of concentrated depletion and thermal gels of octadecyl-coated silica particles for different values of the strength of interaction--polymer concentration for depletion gels and temperature for thermal gels. The depletion gels are composed of dense clusters and voids, while the thermal gels are devoid of clusters. Shear...