Physical cues, such as cell microenvironment stiffness, are known to be important factors in modulating cellular behaviors such as differentiation, viability, and proliferation. Apart from being able to trigger these effects, mechanical stiffness tuning is a very convenient approach that could be implemented readily into smart scaffold designs. In this study, fibrinogen-modified poly(ethylene g...

Heterogeneous nanochannel materials that endow new functionalities different to the intrinsic properties of two original nanoporous materials have wide potential applications in nanofluidics, energy conversion, and biosensors. Herein, we report novel, interesting hydrogel-composited nanochannel devices with regulatable ion rectification characteristics. The heterogeneous nanochannel devices wer...

Inspired by sunflowers, a bionic sunflower based on photo-responsive smart hydrogel was used as photocatalytic reactor and always exhibited relatively stable high H2O2 generation rate at any random angle of irradiation.

to reduce peat while increasing the water holding capacity (whc) of casing soil in button mushroom production an experiment was conducted in 2006 with three hydrogel treatments of: t0= casing soil with no hydrogel, as control, t1= casing soil + 10% hydrogel (v/v), and t2= casing soil + 20% hydrogel (v/v) with three replicates in a completely randomized design. results indicated that treatment 1...

In this study, we report a novel three-component luminescent hydrogel, which is composed of amino acid derivatives (N,N'-di valine-3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic acid, NVPD), riboflavin (RF), and melamine (MM). The three-component hydrogel is attributed to multiple hydrogen bonds and the strong π-π stacking interaction between these molecules. Based on the strong hydrogen bonding of the gelat...

Different from the conventional irreversible covalent conjugations, a simple and efficient dynamic Schiff base covalent assembly is developed to construct the stable and smart dipeptide-protein hydrogels under mild conditions. Diphenylalanine-hemoglobin hydrogel is chosen to investigate the gelation formation process and mechanism. It is found that such assembled dipeptide-protein hydrogels are...

Responsive polymer-based materials (or smart materials) have found numerous uses over the years due to their ease of synthesis and various responsivities/functionalities. Of them, stimuli-responsive hydrogel particles (microgels) have generated a lot of interest, and have been used for a number of applications, most importantly for this submission is their use as components of photonic material...

The peptide GSFSIQYTYHV derived from human semenogelin I forms a transparent hydrogel through spontaneous self-assembly in water at neutral pH. Linear rheology measurements demonstrate that the gel shows a dominating elastic response over a large frequency interval. CD, fluorescence and FTIR spectroscopy and cryo-TEM studies imply long fibrillar aggregates of extended β-sheet. Dynamic light sca...