ID No: 54 Abstract: Concrete is an important building material, due to its ease to use and relatively low cost. However, the presence of cracks endangers the durability of concrete and can result in reinforcement corrosion since a pathway for harmful particles dissolved in fluids and gases is generated. Manual repair costs can go up to half of the annual construction budget. Instead, introducin...

We describe “robotic materials”, a new class of metamaterial that tightly integrate sensing, actuation, computation, communication and power routing in a periodic fashion. Instead of relying on a strict division between mechanism, sensors, and control system, robotic materials allow a unified approach to robot design, customization and manufacturing. Robotic materials shift the complexity of ma...

Polymers that respond to small changes in environmental stimuli with large, sometimes discontinuous changes in their physical state or properties, are often called "smart" polymers. Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PNIPAAm, is one of the most representative smart polymer that exhibits a thermally reversible soluble-insoluble change in the vicinity of its lower critical solution temperature (LCST) a...

A strategy called macro-(affinity ligand) facilitated three-phase partitioning (MLFTPP) is described for refolding of a diverse set of recombinant proteins starting from the solubilized inclusion bodies. It essentially consists of: (i) binding of the protein with a suitable smart polymer and (ii) precipitating the polymer-protein complex as an interfacial layer by mixing in a suitable amount of...

Conducting polymers entered the research field in late 70 ́s and efforts aimed at achieving printed electronics started a decade later. This thesis treats printable organic electrochemical transistors (OECT). Some conjugated polymers can be switched between a high conducting and a low conducting state in an electrochemical cell. In this thesis, the work carried out using poly(3,4ethylenedioxythi...

The presented paper concerns scientific research on processing a poly(lactide-co-glycolide-co-trimethylene carbonate) copolymer (PLLAGLTMC) with thermally induced shape memory and a transition temperature around human body temperature. The material in the literature called terpolymer was used to produce smart, nonwoven fabric with the melt blowing technique. Bioresorbable and biocompatible terp...

Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) are a new class of smart materials, which have the capability to change from a temporary shape 'A' to a memorized permanent shape 'B' upon application of an external stimulus. In recent years, SMPs have attracted much attention from basic and fundamental research to industrial and practical applications due to the cheap and efficient alternative to well-known metall...

Permeabilization of lipid membranes is a major challenge for the development of biocides and for improving the delivery of DNA, anticancer agents, and small proteins within the cell cytosol. Effective membrane permeabilization can be achieved by chemical techniques that often involve an intramembrane assembly of permeabilizing agents such as peptides, amphiphilic molecules, or polymers. Alterna...

Polymer-drug conjugates represent excellent nanopharmaceutical candidates, as they offer multiple advantages related to their intrinsic characteristics. Many of the said characteristics are provided by the covalent bonding between the drug and the polymer. However, their clinical development has been slow and only one polymer-drug conjugate has reached the market, thus there remains an urgent n...

Recently, cellulose has been re-discovered as a smart material that can be used as sensor and actuator materials, which is termed electro-active paper (EAPap). This paper reports recent advances in paper actuators made with cellulose and hybrid materials such as multi-walled carbon nanotubes, conducting polymers and ionic liquids. Two distinct actuator principles in EAPap actuators are demonstr...