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Title: Thermoresponsive Stiffening with Microgel Particles in a Semiflexible Fibrin Network

Abstract

We report here temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven deswelling transition above the lower critical solution temperature. Unlike standard polymer particle composites, decreasing the inclusion volume of the particles (by increasing temperature) is concomitant with a striking increase of the overall elastic stiffness of the composite. We observe such a behavior over a wide composition space. The composite elastic shear modulus reversibly stiffens by up to 10-fold over a small change in temperature from 25 to 35 °C. In isolation, the fibrin network and microgel suspension both soften with increased temperature, making the stiffening of the composites particularly significant. We hypothesize that stiffening is caused by the shrinking microgel particles that deform fibrin filaments, and modify the network structure. We further develop a phenomenological model that quantifies this hypothesis, and the derived predictions are qualitatively consistent with our experimental data.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  2. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Korea Inst. of Science and Technology, Seoul (South Korea)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1606375
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-07ER46471
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Macromolecules
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 52; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 0024-9297
Publisher:
American Chemical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

Citation Formats

Chaudhary, Gaurav, Ghosh, Ashesh, Bharadwaj, N. Ashwin, Kang, Jin Gu, Braun, Paul V., Schweizer, Kenneth S., and Ewoldt, Randy H. Thermoresponsive Stiffening with Microgel Particles in a Semiflexible Fibrin Network. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.9b00124.
Chaudhary, Gaurav, Ghosh, Ashesh, Bharadwaj, N. Ashwin, Kang, Jin Gu, Braun, Paul V., Schweizer, Kenneth S., & Ewoldt, Randy H. Thermoresponsive Stiffening with Microgel Particles in a Semiflexible Fibrin Network. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b00124
Chaudhary, Gaurav, Ghosh, Ashesh, Bharadwaj, N. Ashwin, Kang, Jin Gu, Braun, Paul V., Schweizer, Kenneth S., and Ewoldt, Randy H. 2019. "Thermoresponsive Stiffening with Microgel Particles in a Semiflexible Fibrin Network". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b00124. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1606375.
@article{osti_1606375,
title = {Thermoresponsive Stiffening with Microgel Particles in a Semiflexible Fibrin Network},
author = {Chaudhary, Gaurav and Ghosh, Ashesh and Bharadwaj, N. Ashwin and Kang, Jin Gu and Braun, Paul V. and Schweizer, Kenneth S. and Ewoldt, Randy H.},
abstractNote = {We report here temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven deswelling transition above the lower critical solution temperature. Unlike standard polymer particle composites, decreasing the inclusion volume of the particles (by increasing temperature) is concomitant with a striking increase of the overall elastic stiffness of the composite. We observe such a behavior over a wide composition space. The composite elastic shear modulus reversibly stiffens by up to 10-fold over a small change in temperature from 25 to 35 °C. In isolation, the fibrin network and microgel suspension both soften with increased temperature, making the stiffening of the composites particularly significant. We hypothesize that stiffening is caused by the shrinking microgel particles that deform fibrin filaments, and modify the network structure. We further develop a phenomenological model that quantifies this hypothesis, and the derived predictions are qualitatively consistent with our experimental data.},
doi = {10.1021/acs.macromol.9b00124},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1606375}, journal = {Macromolecules},
issn = {0024-9297},
number = 8,
volume = 52,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Apr 09 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Tue Apr 09 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

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Cited by: 8 works
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