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SUMMARY:Responsive Hydrogels: perspectives\, modelling\, and ongoing effor
 ts - Professor Tom Montenegro-Johnson\, University of Warwick
DTSTART:20241011T150000Z
DTEND:20241011T160000Z
UID:TALK222307@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor Grae Worster
DESCRIPTION:Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymer scaffolds surrounded by adso
 rbed water. From a dry state\, they are capable of swelling in volume by u
 p to two orders of magnitude – becoming up to 99% water - whilst still r
 emaining solid (if a little squishy).\n \nResponsive hydrogels lose this a
 ffinity for water – sometimes quite profoundly – when an environmental
  stimulus\, such as temperature or pH\, transitions beyond a critical valu
 e. Conformational changes in the scaffold squeeze the water out\, and the 
 gel shrivels dramatically. This volume change is reversible (albeit non-re
 ciprocal)\, allowing for cycles of activation and deactivation. As such\, 
 responsive hydrogels have important and exciting applications in microscal
 e actuators.\n \nThis talk will describe some of the big open areas of hyd
 rogel modelling\, before detailing two (very) recent unpublished theoretic
 al pieces of work on 1) thermoresponsive displacement pumps for microfluid
 ic devices\, and 2) coupling pH-responsive gels to oscillating reactions t
 o enable communication and synchronisation.\n\n
LOCATION:MR2
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