Gels and Other Soft Amorphous Solids

Dr. Ferenc Horkay, Research Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), obtained his PhD in Chemistry at the Loránd Eötvös University (Budapest, Hungary) and DSc from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a Professor at the Loránd Eötvös University, an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Freiburg (Germany), and a visiting professor at the University of Grenoble (France). In the USA, he worked as a researcher at the Polymers Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and at the Corporate Research Center of the General Electric Company. His scientific interest is to understand the fundamental principles that govern molecular interactions and define structural hierarchy in complex synthetic and biopolymer systems, such as biological tissues, gels, soft materials, self-assemblies and functional nanostructures. At the NIH, he launched a world class research program in biopolymer science. He developed a novel approach to determine the characteristic length scales that control the osmotic properties of biopolymer and biological gels by combining osmotic, neutron, x-ray and light scattering measurements. This multiscale characterization approach makes it possible to describe the hierarchy of length scales that arise in self-organizing biological materials and provides quantitative information on the effect of ions on the conformation and organization of charged biopolymer molecules and their assemblies. Knowledge of the consequences of ion mediated structural changes on the macroscopic properties provides insight how tissue morphology affects its function. Dr. Horkay has published more than 200 original research papers (several of them are highly cited), 16 book chapters, and edited 10 books. He is the inventor/co-inventor of 16 issued patents. He is regularly invited/keynote/plenary speaker at conferences, serves as chair and/or organizer for many symposia and workshops. He organized numerous symposia at conferences of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society, Polymer Networks Group (PNG), etc. He is active in various scientific organizations; in 2010, he was elected as Chair of the PNG, a worldwide organization of physicists, chemists, and materials scientists. Now he serves as the Secretary of the PNG. Dr. Jack Douglas obtained an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and a Master's Degree in Mathematics from Virginia Commonwealth University and then obtained his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Chicago with Prof. Karl Freed. He then held a postdoc in Physics with Prof. Sam Edwards at Cambridge, followed by another at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. After these postdoctoral positions, he joined NIST as a research scientist in the Polymers Division (NIST). Currently, he is a NIST Fellow, the most senior scientific position at NIST, in the Materials Science and Engineering Division. Dr. Douglas has received number of fellowships and awards: American Chemical Society Senior Award, IBM Fellow, Phi Kappa Phi /Sigma Xi, NATO Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, National Research Council Fellowship, Bronze Medal from the Department of Commerce and Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2011, he was a Chemical Engineering Distinguished Lecturer and Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Imperial College and, until recently, he was an associate editor of Physical Review Letters. He has written around 400 publications, many highly cited, relating to condensed matter physics, but most of his publications are in the field of polymer physics. His interests include the elasticity of polymer networks, the equilibrium and dynamic properties of polymer solutions, phase separation and critical phenomena, fractional calculus, integral equation and renormalization group mathematical methods, numerical and analytic path-integration methods, the properties of knotted and topologically-constrained polymers in solution and melts, carbon nanotubes and graphene, two-dimensional polymers, ionic solutions and polyelectrolytes, the dynamics of glass-forming liquids in the bulk, thin films, and nanocomposites, polymer entanglement, the nature of crystal melting and superionic materials, the interfacial dynamics of crystalline and non-crystalline thin films, crystallization under far from equilibrium conditions, and the dynamics and thermodynamics of molecular self-assembly processes. Emanuela Del Gado, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Physics at Georgetown University, is a theoretical physicist working on engineering-motivated problems. She uses statistical mechanics and computational physics to investigate materials with structural and dynamical complexity, from model amorphous solids, gels and glasses, to new green formulations of cement. Her current research interests cover statistical mechanics and computational physics approaches for non-equilibrium phenomena; cooperative dynamics, nonlinear mechanics and rheology; liquid interfaces and biological tissue. Prof. Del Gado received her undergraduate degree (Laurea in Physics, cum laude) at the University of Naples "Federico II" in Italy, where she also obtained a PhD in Physics in 2001. She has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Montpellier II in France and a post-doctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, and held visiting positions at ESPCI (France) and MIT. Before joining Georgetown University, Dr. Del Gado was the Swiss National Science Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich. In a series of high impact publications on gels and soft solids, she has explored novel models, concepts and computational tools to investigate the relationship between microstructure, aging and response to mechanical deformation, receiving, for one of them, the 2016 Journal of Rheology Publication Award. She has pioneered a new statistical physics approach to investigate gelation and densification of cement hydrates, leading to novel quantitative insight into structure, mechanics and hygrothermal properties of cement, with potential implications for reducing its environmental impact.

Preface

1. Polymer Gels: Basics, Challenges, and Perspectives
2. Competitive Solvation Effects in Polyelectrolyte Solutions
3. Computationally Driven Design of Soft Materials with Tissue-like Mechanical Properties
4. Probe Diffusion Dynamic Light Scattering of Polymer solutions and Gels
5. Nanostructure Evolution of Biomimetic Hydrogel from Silk Fibroin and Poly(N-Vinylcaprolactam): A Small Angle Neutron Scattering Study
6. Model Polymer Thin Films To Measure Structure and Dynamics of Confined, Swollen Networks
7. Effect of Solvent Quality and Monomer Water Solubility on Soft Nanoparticle Morphology
8. The Design and Applications of Beta-Hairpin Peptide Hydrogels
9. Self-Assembly and Mechanical Properties of a Triblock Copolymer Gel in a Mid-block Selective Solvent
10. Mechanics of Disordered Fiber Networks
11. Elastic Relaxation and Response to Deformation of Soft Gels
12. Structure-Property Comparison and Self-Assembly Studies of Molecular Gels Derived from (R)-12-Hydroxystearic Acid Derivatives as Low Molecular Mass Gelators
13. The Importance of Phase Behavior in Understanding Structure-Property Relationships in Crystalline Small Molecule/Polymer Gels
14. A Nanoindentation Approach To Assess the Mechanical Properties of Heterogeneous Biological Tissues with Poorly Defined Surface Characteristics
15. Gels for the Cleaning of Works of Art
16. Polymeric Nanoparticles Explored for Drug-Delivery Applications
17. Using Polymer Science To Improve Concrete: Superabsorbent Polymer Hydrogels in Highly Alkaline Environments
18. Heterogeneity in Cement Hydrates

Editors' Biographies
Author Index
Subject Index