Photochemically induced formation of adhesive hydrogels from sodium alginate, acrylamide, and iron sandwich complexes.

Visible light irradiation of an aqueous solution of sodium alginate and organometallic complex [(CH)Fe(toluene)]BF transforms it into a rigid hydrogel due to crosslinking of the carboxylate groups by the iron ions. Irradiation of the same iron complex together with KSO initiates the polymerization of acrylamide, which provides an efficient method for light-controlled one-step preparation of alginate-polyacrylamide double network hydrogels, which are capable of gluing wet glass with 100-200 kPa shear strength.

Integration of thermal imaging and neural networks for mechanical strength analysis and fracture prediction in 3D-printed plastic parts.

Additive manufacturing demonstrates tremendous progress and is expected to play an important role in the creation of construction materials and final products. Contactless (remote) mechanical testing of the materials and 3D printed parts is a critical limitation since the amount of collected data and corresponding structure/strength correlations need to be acquired. In this work, an efficient approach for coupling mechanical tests with thermographic analysis is described.