{"id":27080,"date":"2025-07-13T17:14:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=27080"},"modified":"2025-07-13T17:18:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:33:58","slug":"muscle-like-gel-polymer-gets-stronger-with-a-new-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/muscle-like-gel-polymer-gets-stronger-with-a-new-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Muscle-like gel polymer gets stronger with a new recipe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"e3e5e4\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"224\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27081 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e3e5e4; width:840px;height:auto\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp 700w, https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-675x216.webp 675w, https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-150x48.webp 150w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em><sup>Computational screening process for mechanophore candidates that can engender rapid self-strengthening in hydrogel materials.<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hydrogels are a permeable, soft material consisting of polymer networks and water that are relevant for biological material applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Gong\u2019s group at WPI-ICReDD has previously developed muscle-like double-network hydrogel technologies that undergo self-strengthening activated by mechanical stress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Upon mechanical stress, the brittle polymer network breaks and generates radicals that form new, stronger polymer networks by reacting with monomers pre-dispersed in the material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, the group discovered that incorporating mechanophores containing weak bonds in the brittle network highly improves the efficiency of bond breaking and thereby leads to rapid self-strengthening. However, such weak bonds are also sensitive to heat and light-triggered reactions, which are concerning for material stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this, a team of researchers from WPI-ICReDD developed a computational design that rapidly evaluates mechanophores that contain stronger bonds but create force-sensitive polymers. Professor Maeda\u2019s research group has been developing the Artificial Force Induced Reaction (AFIR) method that automatically explores reaction pathways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Associate Professor Jiang has developed an\u00a0<em>extended-AFIR<\/em>\u00a0(EX-AFIR) method that analyzes reactions induced by mechanical force and predicts the force required to break polymer chains. By combining the EX-AFIR method with machine learning, developed by Assistant Professor Staub and Professor Varnek, they rapidly screened mechanophore candidates and identified key molecular parameters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This research was published in<a href=\"http:\/\/10.1039\/d5sc00151j\">\u00a0<em>Chemical Science<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on July 10, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, molecular candidates were prescreened for desirable limited rotational capability (&lt;90\u00b0). They predicted that limited rotation within a polymer chain would effectively introduce \u201cnodes\u201d where the chain can break under weak force despite having strong bonds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EX-AFIR was then used to derive the activation force (F<sub>act<\/sub>), the force necessary to initiate radical generation, of these candidates with a node. Lastly, EX-AFIR was combined with machine learning to calculate the decay pathways of the radicals and identify mechanophores that could generate long-lived radicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gels were synthesized from selected mechanophores and investigated to confirm the practicality of this computational selection method. These gels featured rapid reinforcement, and the mechanophores remained unchanged after heating at 80\u00b0C or UV light exposure for 10 hours, as expected, highlighting the significance of the node-like structure. Additionally, gels synthesized from mechanophores that were filtered out based on computational simulations were also investigated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As predicted, these gels failed to demonstrate self-strengthening qualities, further validating the practicality of this computational design approach. These results highlight the exciting opportunities of integrating computational calculations to rapidly advance technologies that would otherwise be time-intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The attached video\u00a0compares the radical generation of hydrogels suggested (DN-Cam) and filtered out (DN-Cy and DN-Pin) by computational simulations. Pre-dispersed in the gels are ferrous ions (Fe<sup>2+<\/sup>) and xylene orange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Radicals generated from the broken polymer networks will oxidize the ferrous ions into ferric ions (Fe2+\u00a0\u2192 Fe3+) which then complex with xylene orange to produce a distinct orange color. As the computational simulations suggested, only the DN-Cam gel produced a noticeable color change, suggesting the other gels generate unstable radicals that rapidly decay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hydrogels are a permeable, soft material consisting of polymer networks and water that are relevant for biological material applications. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-chemistry"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-200x200.webp",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-675x216.webp",675,216,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-600x224.webp",600,224,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-600x224.webp",600,224,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process.webp",700,224,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-550x224.webp",550,224,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-95x65.webp",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-640x224.webp",640,224,true],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Computational-screening-process-150x48.webp",150,48,true]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/category\/news\/research\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Research<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/category\/news\/chemistry\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Chemistry<\/a>","tag_info":"Chemistry","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27083,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27080\/revisions\/27083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}