Publications by Huachuan Du | EPFL Graph Search

Reinforcing hydrogels with in situ formed amorphous CaCO3

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Ran Zhao, Tianyu Yuan, Huachuan Du, Michael David Kessler

Hydrogels are often employed for tissue engineering and moistening applications. However, they are rarely used for load-bearing purposes because of their limited stiffness and the stiffness-toughness compromise inherent to them. By contrast, nature uses hy ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022

Monodisperse Selectively Permeable Hydrogel Capsules Made from Single Emulsion Drops

Esther Amstad, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Huachuan Du, Mathias Steinacher, Alice Cont

Capsules are often used to protect chemical and biological entities from the environment, to control the timing and location of their release, or to facilitate the collection of waste. Their performance depends on the thickness and composition of their she ...

2021

Additives: Their Influence on the Humidity- and Pressure-Induced Crystallization of Amorphous CaCO3

Esther Amstad, Camelia Borca, Huachuan Du, Mathias Steinacher, Alan Böhlen, Clémence Courrégelongue

Nature possesses a unique control over the formation of CaCO3 crystals that imparts fascinating mechanical properties to many CaCO3-based biomaterials. This high level of control is, at least in part, achieved through the use of certain soluble additives t ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2020

Nacre-inspired Hard and Tough Materials

Esther Amstad, Huachuan Du

Nature fabricates materials with properties that are difficult to reproduce with manmade counterparts. For example, nacre, composed of layers of CaCO3 crystals that are interspaced with small quantities of organic components, is one of the toughest known b ...

2019

Tuning the Incorporation of Magnesium into Calcite during Its Crystallization from Additive-Free Aqueous Solution

Esther Amstad, Camelia Borca, Huachuan Du

Under ambient conditions, marine organisms are able to synthesize a variety of functional materials, ranging from eye lenses to protective shells through the meticulous control over magnesium incorporation into calcite during its crystallization. The mecha ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2019

Production of Additive‐Free Amorphous Nanoparticles with a SAW‐Based Microfluidic Spray‐Dryer

Esther Amstad, Huachuan Du, Mathias Steinacher, Duncan Christophe Emmanuel Gilbert

Spray‐drying is a widely employed, cost‐effective process to formulate solutions into solid particles of controlled sizes and compositions. In addition, this process can also offer control over the structure of spray‐dried particles: if the solvent is evap ...

Wiley2019

Polymeric structures

Huachuan Du, Esther Amstad

A polymeric structure comprising a plurality of spherical or polyhedral polymeric cells bound through their sidewalls via a connection element, wherein the polymeric cells and the connection element have a different Young's modulus. ...

2019

Water: How does it influence the CaCO3 formation?

Esther Amstad, Huachuan Du

Nature produces biomineral‐based materials with a fascinating set of properties using only a limited number of elements. This set of properties is obtained by closely controlling the structure and local composition of the biominerals. We are far from obtai ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2019

Water: its influence on the formation and crystallization of amorphous calcium carbonate

Huachuan Du

Nature produces CaCO3-based materials that display fascinating mechanical properties. These properties are a result of the exquisite control over the formation of CaCO3 crystals that nature possesses. Such a high level of control is likely achieved, at lea ...

EPFL2019

Fabrication of Hexagonal-Prismatic Granular Hydrogel Sheets

Esther Amstad, Huachuan Du, Mathias Steinacher, Alice Cont

Natural soft materials are often composed of proteins that self-assemble into well-defined structures and display mechanical properties that cannot be matched by manmade materials. These materials are frequently mimicked with hydrogels whose mechanical pro ...

2018