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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 15: Poster I

CPP 15.21: Poster

Montag, 18. März 2024, 18:00–20:00, Poster C

Effect of different network topologies on swelling and mechanical properties of hydrogels — •Somesh Kurahatti, Mariano Brito, David Beyer, and Christian Holm — Institute for Computational Physics, Stuttgart, Germany

Polyelectrolyte gels exhibit larger swelling ratios than their uncharged counterpart because of the interplay between osmotic pressure induced by the dissociated counterions and the larger stretching induced by the self-repulsion of the backbone charges. Changing the charge density or varying the network contraints affects the swelling capacity as well as the mechanical moduli, which can be shown to also exhibit a strong influence on the desalination efficiency. In the current project, we explore the coupling between bulk modulus and equilibrium swelling of the polyelectrolyte hydrogels and their relation with different network architectures, by analysing various hydrogel conformations including different topologies and network defects. We investigate the bulk modulus and equilibrium swelling as a function of strand length under different salt concentrations and ionization degrees, and compare our results to existing scaling theories. As a result we find a universal coupling between these two quantities in different salinity regimes. The universal coupling can be broken by replacing linear polyelectrolyte strands by bottlebrush polyelectrolytes. Our results are helpful to develop a rational design of functional hydrogels.

Keywords: hydrogels; bulk modulus; scaling theory; desalination; ESPResSo