gels

September 6, 2012

By themselves, polyacrylamide gels (a) and alginate gels (b) are brittle. The new hydrogel (c), however, has a more complex molecular structure that helps to dissipate stress across a wide area. The red circles represent calcium ions, and the blue triangles and green squares represent covalent crosslinks between chains. (Credit: Jeong-Yun Sun and Widusha R. K. Illeperuma.)