Return to search

Hydrogel Microparticles as Sensors for Specific Adhesion: Case Studies on Antibody Detection and Soil Release Polymers

Adhesive processes in aqueous media play a crucial role in nature and are important for
many technological processes. However, direct quantification of adhesion still requires expensive
instrumentation while their sample throughput is rather small. Here we present a fast, and
easily applicable method on quantifying adhesion energy in water based on interferometric
measurement of polymer microgel contact areas with functionalized glass slides and evaluation via
the Johnson–Kendall–Roberts (JKR) model. The advantage of the method is that the microgel matrix
can be easily adapted to reconstruct various biological or technological adhesion processes. Here we
study the suitability of the new adhesion method with two relevant examples: (1) antibody detection
and (2) soil release polymers. The measurement of adhesion energy provides direct insights on the
presence of antibodies showing that the method can be generally used for biomolecule detection. As a
relevant example of adhesion in technology, the antiadhesive properties of soil release polymers used
in today’s laundry products are investigated. Here the measurement of adhesion energy provides
direct insights into the relation between polymer composition and soil release activity. Overall, the
work shows that polymer hydrogel particles can be used as versatile adhesion sensors to investigate
a broad range of adhesion processes in aqueous media.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84594
Date06 April 2023
CreatorsStrzelczyk, Alexander Klaus, Wang, Hanqing, Lindhorst, Andreas, Waschke, Johannes, Pompe, Tilo, Kropf, Christian, Luneau, Benoit, Schmidt, Stephan
PublisherMDPI
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Relation2310-2861, 31

Page generated in 0.0025 seconds