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Prediction of rheological properties via structure elucidation of solvated hydrogels
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DOI：10.1038/s41563-026-02491-z.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Hydrogels are prevalent materials with applications ranging from drug delivery systems, contact lenses and tissue engineering scaffolds. However, they require considerable perturbation to observe their nanoscale, solution-phase structures necessary for predicting bulk properties. Although studies suggest that methylcellulose, a quintessential hydrogel material, can be described by a semiflexible biopolymer network model, there remain demonstrable inconsistencies in the predicted concentration dependence of rheological properties and in the observation of higher-order features. Here we image solvated hydrogels with high spatiotemporal resolution via liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy to avoid desolvation and shear artefacts. Corroborated by scattering and scanning electron microscopy, we observe that methylcellulose hydrogels form a network with high persistence length and micrometre-scale fibril bundles arranged in hierarchical assemblies, providing a more accurate prediction of bulk rheology. In addition, network structures are observed for hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and hydroxypropyl cellulose. These observations across multiple-length scales lead to a clearer understanding of how nanoscale structure impacts microscale structure and macroscopic behaviour, aiding the development of more accurate structure–property relationships for hydrogel materials. Liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy is used to investigate the network structure of cellulosic gels. The formation of nano- and microscale fibrillar bundles is observed, providing insight into structure–property relationships in hydrogels.
Keywords:
Characterization and analytical techniques
Gels and hydrogels
Materials science
Materials Science
general
Optical and Electronic Materials
Biomaterials
Nanotechnology
Condensed Matter Physics
Journal
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38.5
Papers:
6.7K
Citations:
11.5W
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