Magnetic resonance analysis of capillary formation reaction front dynamics in alginate gels

• The formation of heterogeneous structures in biopolymer gels is of current interest for biomedical applications and is of fundamental interest to understanding the molecular level origins of structures generated from disordered solutions by reactions. The cation-mediated physical gelation of alginate by calcium and copper is analyzed using magnetic resonance measurements of spatially resolved molecular dynamics during gel front propagation. Relaxation time and pulse-field gradient methods are applied to determine the impact of ion front motion on molecular translational dynamics. The formation of capillaries in alginate copper gels is correlated to changes in translational dynamics.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

calcium cations

glassy-polymers

capillary

transition

pulsed-field gradient

NMR

alginate

formation

diffusion

relaxation

relaxation

gelation

MRI

magnetic resonance

scaffolds

gelation

imaging mri

microscopy

heavy-metal uptake

dissipative dynamics

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)