Print Email Facebook Twitter Transient Supramolecular Hydrogels Formed by Aging-Induced Seeded Self-Assembly of Molecular Hydrogelators Title Transient Supramolecular Hydrogels Formed by Aging-Induced Seeded Self-Assembly of Molecular Hydrogelators Author Wang, Yiming (East China University of Science and Technology) Piskorz, T.K. (TU Delft ChemE/Advanced Soft Matter) Lovrak, M. (TU Delft ChemE/Advanced Soft Matter) Mendes, E. (TU Delft ChemE/Advanced Soft Matter) Guo, Xuhong (East China University of Science and Technology) Eelkema, R. (TU Delft ChemE/Advanced Soft Matter) van Esch, J.H. (TU Delft ChemE/Advanced Soft Matter) Date 2020 Abstract Here, transient supramolecular hydrogels that are formed through simple aging-induced seeded self-assembly of molecular gelators are reported. In the involved molecular self-assembly system, multicomponent gelators are formed from a mixture of precursor molecules and, typically, can spontaneously self-assemble into thermodynamically more stable hydrogels through a multilevel self-sorting process. In the present work, it is surprisingly found that one of the precursor molecules is capable of self-assembling into nano-sized aggregates upon a gentle aging treatment. Importantly, these tiny aggregates can serve as seeds to force the self-assembly of gelators along a kinetically controlled pathway, leading to transient hydrogels that eventually spontaneously convert into thermodynamically more stable hydrogels over time. Such an aging-induced seeded self-assembly process is not only a new route toward synthetic out-of-equilibrium supramolecular systems, but also suggests the necessity of reporting the age of self-assembling building block solutions in other self-assembly systems. Subject aginghydrogelspathway complexityself-assemblysupramolecular chemistry To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5cc68b8e-6fc0-4519-b7ad-b5f03d5e63f9 DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201902487 ISSN 1936-6612 Source Advanced Science Letters, 7 (7) Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2020 Yiming Wang, T.K. Piskorz, M. Lovrak, E. Mendes, Xuhong Guo, R. Eelkema, J.H. van Esch Files PDF advs.201902487.pdf 1.53 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:5cc68b8e-6fc0-4519-b7ad-b5f03d5e63f9/datastream/OBJ/view