Soft Matter Blog

Self-assembly of cellulose nanofibrils by genetically engineered fusion proteins. The team led by Markus Ben Linder describe how genetic engineering is used to design proteins that have “smart” functionalities that allow directed self-assembly of cellulose nanofibrils for the control of nanostructures in soft materials.

Suvi Varjonen, Päivi Laaksonen, Arja Paananen, Hanna Valo, Hendrik Hähl, Timo Laaksonen and Markus Ben Linder, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0SM01114B  (Advance Article)

Nucleation of colloidal crystals on configurable seed structures. This hot paper shows the topology of the initial hard sphere nucleus determines the morphology of the crystal. The team led by A. van Blaaderen claim that the reported results explain the complex crystal morphologies observed in experiments on hard spheres.

M. Hermes, E. C. M. Vermolen, M. E. Leunissen, D. L. J. Vossen, P. D. J. van Oostrum, M. Dijkstra and A. van Blaaderen, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01219J (Advance Article) 

Molecular dynamics and biaxiality of nematic polymers and elastomers. In this paper the authors study the origins of phase biaxiality in nematic polymers and elastomers to gain insight into the relation of molecular dynamics and biaxiality.  The team report that broad biaxial nematic phases were found for liquid crystalline polymers in all conventional attachment geometries.

Felicitas Brömmel, Werner Stille, Heino Finkelmann and Anke Hoffmann, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01116A (Advance Article)

Read all of the papers for free until the 11^th March.

Coupled oscillations in a 1D emulsion of Belousov–Zhabotinsky droplets. This article by Jorge Delgado, Ning Li, Marcin Leda, Hector O. González-Ochoa, Seth Fraden and Irving R. Epstein reports the use of a programmable illumination source to control the boundary and initial conditions of arrays of small numbers of non-linear, oscillating, micron-sized Belousov–Zhabotinsky droplets. The team say that in these small collections of droplets, transient patterns decay rapidly and they observe several more complex attractors, including ones in which some adjacent droplets are in-phase. (Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01240H, Advance Article)

Interested to know more? Why not read the full article for free:

A new low molecular weight gelator forms metallogels in the presence of Ag salts. Photoreduction of the salt under UV irradiation then results in the CONTROLLED synthesis of silver nanoparticles.

Photoluminescence of freshly prepared gels

Mot interestingly, the gels exhibited complex and surprising rheological behaviour depending on the initial concentration of silver salt.

Read for free HERE until March 4, 2011. Marc-Oliver M. Piepenbrock, Nigel Clarke and Jonathan W. Steed, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM00647E, Paper

Researchers use peanut butter to draw analogies between colloidal glassy pastes and metallurgy. The nutty spread was shown to undergo plastic deformations – similar to ‘work hardening’ observed in the strengthening of metals.

Smooth peanut butter exhibited very slow dynamics and non-linear rheological properties after constant shear rate experiments.

Read more here: Romaric R. R. Vincent and Peter Schurtenberger, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01256D, Communication. Article FREE until 4 March, 2011 at Soft Matter.

The dependence of pattern formation in hydrogels undergoing the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction on the gel size and shape is presented in a recent Soft Matter paper for an upcoming themed issue on Active Soft Matter.

The authors use both experimental and simulation approaches to validate their own theoretical model on the chemomechanical coupling in responsive gels.

Read this Soft Matter article for free (until February 24, 2011) here, and watch out for other papers like this in the upcoming themed issue on Active Soft Matter.

Irene Chou Chen, Olga Kuksenok, Victor V. Yashin, Ryan M. Moslin, Anna C. Balazs and Krystyn J. Van Vliet, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01007C, Paper

In a recent communication, triterpenoids are used as scaffolds in supramolecular self-assembly and recognition. Conjugates of molecules based on glycyrrhetinic acid form dimers held together through 6-hydrogen bonding pairs. The supramolecular dimeric structure was able to recognise and encapsulate polar molecules in aprotic solvents through its suitably sized cavity.

This unique dimer may have the potential to encage molecules with medicinal activity, and thus be used as a novel biomaterial.
Read this Soft Matter article for free (until February 24, 2011) here.

Jun Hu, Jinrong Lu, Ruofan Li and Yong Ju, Soft Matter, 2011, (Advance Article), DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01392G, Communication