Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2024
Monday–Friday, March 4–8, 2024; Minneapolis & Virtual
Session OD01: V: On-Demand Presentations - Available throughout March Meeting
6:00 AM,
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Abstract: OD01.00002 : Characterizing mechanical and structural properties of degrading tetra-PEG hydrogels*
Presenter:
Rupali Sharma
(Clemson University)
Authors:
Rupali Sharma
(Clemson University)
Vaibhav A Palkar
(Clemson University)
Olga Kuksenok
(Clemson University)
Controlling degradation of polymer networks is critical for a broad range of applications. Photo-controlled degradation permits spatially-resolved dynamic control of materials properties, in particular mechanical properties of hydrogel-based materials. We use our recently developed dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) framework that captures degradation of hydrogels at the mesoscale to characterize variations in network elasticity as degradation proceeds. Breaking elastically active network strands during degradation leads to a decrease in elastic modulus. We quantify the elastic modulus of degrading gels as a function of the proximity to the reverse gel point. Further, degrading hydrogels are highly heterogeneous systems; hence we quantify the structural and dynamic heterogeneities upon approaching the reverse gel point. Our results allow one to quantify mechanical properties of degrading hydrogel material and could provide guidelines for future design of degrading materials with dynamically controlled mechanical properties.
*This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF award no. 2110309.
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