INTEGRATE researchers co-author new ACS Biomacromolecules article on thermoresponsive cellulose-based gels

A new open-access article, “Thermoresponsive Gels Based on Cross-Linked Polymer-Grafted Cellulose Nanocrystals”, has just been published in the ACS journal Biomacromolecules. The paper presents a new class of “one-component” nanocomposite hydrogels based on cellulose nanocrystals grafted with thermoresponsive polymers and cross-linked via UV-mediated thiol–ene click chemistry.

These hydrogels can reversibly shrink and swell in response to temperature changes, with their mechanical and responsive behavior finely tuned through polymer graft chemistry, architecture, and solvent interactions. At the low nanocrystal loadings used, the study shows that properties are dominated by chain entanglement and solvation. Our study finds that stimuli-responsive materials based on such architectures can have promising applications ranging from soft actuators to biomedical systems. The full article is available open access on the ACS Publications website: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.biomac.5c02262