Unit

Soft Materials Laboratory

Laboratory

Related publications (47)

From Surfactants to 3D Printing: How Ion-Chelator Pair Interactions Affect the Mechanical Properties of Bioinspired Materials

The remarkable adaptability observed in marine ecosystems has often inspired researchers when developing new soft materials. The research undertaken in this thesis explores how ion chelator pair interactions influence the mechanical properties of bioinspir ...

EPFL2024

Influence of the hydrophile-lipophile balance of perfluorinated surfactants on the emulsion stability

Esther Amstad, Gaia De Angelis

Emulsions are omnipresent in our everyday life; for example, in food, certain drug and cosmetic formulations, agriculture, and as paints. Moreover, they are frequently used to perform high-throughput screening assays with minimum sample volumes. Key to the ...

Springer Heidelberg2024

Controlling the Microstructure and Composition of 3D Printed Soft Load-Bearing Hydrogels

Matteo Hirsch

Hydrogels are among the first materials expressly designed for their use in biomedicine. However, state-of-the-art applications of hydrogels are severely limited because they are typically either too soft or too brittle such that they cannot bear significa ...

EPFL2023

Selectively permeable microcapsules

Chuen-Ru Li

Microcapsules are appealing containers for delivering active ingredients, such as drugs and cosmetics, or conducting chemical and biological reactions on a small scale. To control the timing and location of release of these encapsulants, the shells of micr ...

EPFL2023

Hydrogel-Encased Photonic Microspheres with Enhanced Color Saturation and High Suspension Stability

Esther Amstad

Regular arrays of colloidal particles can produce striking structural colors without the need for any chemical pigments. Regular arrays of colloidal particles can be processed into microparticles via emulsion templates for use as structural colorants. Phot ...

Washington2023

From Surfactants to Viscoelastic Capsules

Esther Amstad, Gaia De Angelis, Natascha Ilena Gray

Micrometer sized capsules are often used as single entities for the encapsulation and release of active ingredients, for example in food, cosmetics, and drug delivery. Important parameters that determine the stability of capsules and the release of reagent ...

WILEY2023

Deformation and Fracture of Tough Microstructured Hydrogels

Michael David Kessler

Many natural materials are structured on different length scales. This structuring often leads to an intricate interplay between soft and stiff components, which significantly improves the fracture toughness of these materials. A class of soft material tha ...

EPFL2022

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

Mechanical reinforcement of granular hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Francesca Bono, Alvaro Lino Boris Charlet

Granular hydrogels are composed of hydrogel-based microparticles, so-called microgels, that are densely packed to form an ink that can be 3D printed, injected or cast into macroscopic structures. They are frequently used as tissue engineering scaffolds bec ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022

Recycling of Load-Bearing 3D Printable Double Network Granular Hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Alvaro Lino Boris Charlet, Sanjay Phileas Schreiber

Sustainable materials, such as recyclable polymers, become increasingly important as they are often environmentally friendlier than their one-time-use counterparts. In parallel, the trend toward more customized products demands for fast prototyping methods ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2022

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