The Universitat Jaume I is part of a European network of collaborative science that advances in the research of the so-called smart gels. These materials respond to external stimuli, and they are used in different industries and varied products such as toothpaste, sun cream, medicines, phones or televisions, among others. The study of these gels through the ITN SMARTNET European network opens the door to develop next-generation soft materials with new and more efficient applications.
ITN SMARTNET (Soft Advanced Materials Training Network) is made up of researchers from universities in different European countries and operates through the exchange and cooperation in the field of soft materials. Through basic and experimental science and nanotechnology, the project advances in the study of these materials on the border of chemistry, physics and biology. It represents a pioneering research because it is an unexplored area until now.
Soft materials, such as gels, emulsions or membranes, have a huge social and economic impact since they are used in industries such as food, cosmetics, batteries or oil extraction, and in fields such as medicine and nanotechnology. As UJI researcher Nishant Singh explains, “soft materials, like gels, are a kind of materials halfway between solids and liquids. They have solid properties, but are also full of liquid, and that gives rise to a certain properties that are very particular and allow interesting applications in different fields”.
But while these materials have been widely used in these fields, their possibilities are limited since they have been scarcely studied and it is not known in depth neither their molecular structure nor many of the chemical and physical processes that give rise to the different reactions of these materials. Advancing in the knowledge of these structures is one of the main objectives of the SMARTNET network, which opens the door to the development of next-generation soft materials with new and more efficient applications. As Singh notes, “they are complex materials formed from a three-dimensional network that holds the solvent. It is like a kind of internal scaffold that forms molecules by binding them with a specific orientation and with certain interactions. The way in which these molecules associate and interact to produce these three-dimensional structures in the liquid is very uncertain and particular. Studying, understanding and discovering the interactions that give rise to this arrangement is the objective of the project. This knowledge opens the way for the next generation of soft matter as a promising alternative to existing systems.”
The gels studied by the researchers fall within the category of the so-called smart materials, since they are smart gels that respond to external stimuli. In other words, they change their properties depending on the physical conditions in a very sharp way. Jorge Ruiz Ollés, researcher at the University of York and one of the members of the SMARTNET network, points out that “the structure of these gels has a large internal mobility due to the solvent, which enables a transfer of all kinds of substances. Thus, the application of these materials in biomedicine, for example, could be linked to the release of molecules within the body depending on the conditions of this body, but also on the external conditions. That is to say, if we stimulate the gel with heat, this gel could release the molecules trapped in it, which could be applied in medicine or skin creams with a controlled release. The gel can retain molecules for a long time and release them when you take the pill or you apply the cream in a controlled way depending on the environment of the body itself. Thus, different types of gels could be developed to act in different conditions. To give another example, in the case of the treatment of diabetes, these researches could produce a material that continuously releases the amount of insulin that the patient needs, like a nicotine patch. That would overcome the problem of having peak concentrations of a drug in the body and not a progressive and constant release. Such materials can help stabilize those levels of drugs or other substances.”
A European network of experts
The SMARTNET ITN network, funded by the European Union, gathers about twenty scientists from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain. They are young researchers working in a wide range of fields, such as chemistry, materials science, biochemistry engineering or computational chemistry.
The Universitat Jaume I is one of the partner universities of this network through Biosupramat group, led by Dr. Beatriu Escuder and integrated by researchers Nishant Singh and Marco Araujo, from the Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry. Specifically, the participation of the group in this project focuses on of experimental science work. As Singh explains, “one of the jobs we do at the UJI is to exploit the properties of these gels for catalysis, something that is in the field of green chemistry, because if we use these gels as catalysts, we increase the speed of the reactions. This is more environmentally-friendly, as they spend less solvents that may be harmful to the environment.”
Besides the UJI, in the project also they participate as partners the Delft University of Technology, the University of Bordeaux, the University of York and the University of Strathclyde. The network also has two industrial partners: the companies Nano Fiber Matrix BV and Solvay-Laboratory of the Future.
The research carried out by the SMARTNET network opens the way to the development of new technologies in the field of soft-matter science. It also enables the training of young scientific experts in this field to meet the future needs of performance for high-technology applications.
Project members have already participated in numerous conferences and have produced different publications of research results from different disciplines, which are available on the web http://www.smartnet4u.org/
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