Controlling Syneresis of Hydrogels Using Organic Salts.
Supramolecular hydrogels can spontaneously undergo syneresis through fibre-fibre interactions and expel significant amounts of water upon aging. In this process, the hydrophobicity of fibres which regulates the 3D-rearrangement of the self-assembled structures during syneresis is important. Here, we show that we can control the hydrophobic microenvironment of gels by incorporating organic salts into the co-assembled gel fibres thereby enabling control of the macroscopic gel volume phase transition.
['Panja|Santanu|S|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5082-5196', 'Dietrich|Bart|B|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4544-4604', 'Adams|Dave J|DJ|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3176-1350']
Syneresis Co-assembly Multicomponent hydrogel Rheology