Physical gels are swollen polymer networks consisting of transient crosslink junctions associated with hydrogen or ionic bonds. Unlike covalently crosslinked gels, these physical crosslinks are reversible thus enabling these materials to display highly tunable and dynamic mechanical properties. In this work, we study the polymer composition effects on the fracture behavior of a gelatin gel, which is a thermoreversible biopolymer gel consisting of denatured collagen chains bridging physical network junctions formed from triple helices. Below the critical volume fraction for chain entanglement, which we confirm via neutron scattering measurements, we find that the fracture behavior is consistent with a viscoplastic type process characterized by hydrodynamic friction of individual polymer chains through the polymer mesh to show that the enhancement in fracture scales inversely with the squared of the mesh size of the gelatin gel network. Above this critical volume fraction, the fracture process can be described by the Lake-Thomas theory that considers fracture as a chain scission process due to chain entanglements.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c8sm00722e | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
January 2025
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, 38156-8-8349, Iran.
Strawberry fruits are highly perishable and have a limited shelf life. Therefore, effective methods such as essential oils (EOs) and edible coatings are required to mitigate spoilage and maintain fruit quality during storage. In the current study, Echinophora platyloba EO was extracted and subsequently formulated into a nanoemulsion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood Chem
December 2024
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Applied Biosciences, Department of Bioactive and Functional Food Chemistry, Karlsruhe, Germany; Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany; Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Life Sciences, Professorship of Food Biopolymer Systems, Freising, Germany. Electronic address:
Gluten-free products must not contain more than 20 mg/kg of gluten to be safe for consumption by celiac disease patients. Almost all analytical methods are calibrated to wheat, wheat gluten or gliadin, and there is no rye-specific reference material available. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the harvest year on rye gluten composition and to generate distinct rye isolates to serve as calibration standards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Oncode Institute, Hubrecht Institute-Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, Utrecht 3584 CT, The Netherlands.
Matrigel/BME, a basement membrane-like preparation, supports long-term growth of epithelial 3D organoids from adult stem cells [T. Sato , , 262-265 (2009); T. Sato , , 1762-1772 (2011)].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biol Sci
January 2025
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 639 Zhizaoju Road, Shanghai, China.
Skin fibrotic diseases are characterized by abnormal fibroblast function and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix. Our previous single-cell sequencing results identified an enriched fibroblast subcluster in skin fibrotic tissues that highly expresses the actin cross-linking cytoskeletal protein Transgelin (TAGLN), which bridges the mechanical environment of tissues and cellular metabolism. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the role of TAGLN in the pathogenesis of skin fibrosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood Res Int
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Jianghuai Agricultural Product Fine Processing and Resource Utilization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Anhui Engineering Research Center for High Value Utilization of Characteristic Agricultural Products, College of Food and Nutrition, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, China. Electronic address:
This study aimed to investigate the influence of heterogeneous amylopectin (waxy corn starch, WCS) on the retrogradation of wheat starch (WS), hoping to provide a new idea for alleviating the retrogradation of steamed cold noodles. The chain length distribution data confirmed the formation of a binary gel network resulting from the heterogeneous amylopectin structure between WCS and WS. With the increase of WCS concentration, the modulus and setback value of WS-WCS binary gel decreased, which was attributed to the newly built network structure hindering the aggregation of WS molecules.
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