Gelatin-Tannin-Based Greener Binder Technology for Stone Shot and Stone Wool Materials: A Detailed Study.

The detailed study presented herein of gelatins modified with tannins as greener binder systems for stone wool and related materials has unveiled a versatile technology that offers a wide range of possibilities for tailor-making properties toward various application areas. Thus, high unaged and aged mechanical strengths in combination with low water solubilities may generally be obtained from the use of gelatins with higher gel strength (and hence, generally, higher molecular weights), low-to-mid range tannin addition levels (3-20%), alkali metal hydroxides for pH adjustment, and final pH in the range 8-9. Comparatively low water uptake properties may be obtained using higher gel strength type A gelatins, lower tannin addition levels, alkali metal hydroxides for pH adjustment, and lower final pH. Even lower water uptake properties may then be obtained using Ca(OH)2 in place of alkali metal hydroxides. If desired, higher water uptakes may be obtained using type B gelatins (or lower gel strength gelatins in general), higher tannin addition levels, and higher final pH. Mechanistic studies indicated that the optimal modification of gelatin with the tannin component occurs via several pathways.

Size-Limited Penetration of Nanoparticles into Porcine Respiratory Mucus after Aerosol Deposition.

We investigated the rheological properties and the penetration of differently sized carboxylated nanoparticles in pig pulmonary mucus, on different distance and time scales. Nanoparticles were either mechanically mixed into the mucus samples or deposited as an aerosol, the latter resembling a more physiologically relevant delivery scenario. After mechanical dispersion, 500 nm particles were locally trapped; a fraction of carboxylated tracer particles of 100 or 200 nm in diameter could however freely diffuse in these networks over distances of approximately 20 µm. In contrast, after aerosol deposition on top of the mucus layer only particles with a size of 100 nm were able to penetrate into mucus, suggesting the presence of smaller pores at the air-mucus interface compared to within mucus. These findings are relevant to an understanding of the fate of potentially harmful aerosol particles, such as pathogens, pollutants, and other nanomaterials after incidental inhalation, as well as for the design of pulmonary drug delivery systems.

Physical properties of cytoplasmic intermediate filaments.

Intermediate filaments (IFs) constitute a sophisticated filament system in the cytoplasm of eukaryotes. They form bundles and networks with adapted viscoelastic properties and are strongly interconnected with the other filament types, microfilaments and microtubules. IFs are cell type specific and apart from biochemical functions, they act as mechanical entities to provide stability and resilience to cells and tissues. We review the physical properties of these abundant structural proteins including both in vitro studies and cell experiments. IFs are hierarchical structures and their physical properties seem to a large part be encoded in the very specific architecture of the biopolymers. Thus, we begin our review by presenting the assembly mechanism, followed by the mechanical properties of individual filaments, network and structure formation due to electrostatic interactions, and eventually the mechanics of in vitro and cellular networks. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Mechanobiology.

Attractive interactions among intermediate filaments determine network mechanics in vitro.

Mechanical and structural properties of K8/K18 and vimentin intermediate filament (IF) networks have been investigated using bulk mechanical rheometry and optical microrheology including diffusing wave spectroscopy and multiple particle tracking. A high elastic modulus G0 at low protein concentration c, a weak concentration dependency of G0 (G0 ∼ c(0.5 ± 0.1)) and pronounced strain stiffening are found for these systems even without external crossbridgers. Strong attractive interactions among filaments are required to maintain these characteristic mechanical features, which have also been reported for various other IF networks. Filament assembly, the persistence length of the filaments and the network mesh size remain essentially unaffected when a nonionic surfactant is added, but strain stiffening is completely suppressed, G0 drops by orders of magnitude and exhibits a scaling G0 ∼ c(1.9 ± 0.2) in agreement with microrheological measurements and as expected for entangled networks of semi-flexible polymers. Tailless K8Δ/K18ΔT and various other tailless filament networks do not exhibit strain stiffening, but still show high G0 values. Therefore, two binding sites are proposed to exist in IF networks. A weaker one mediated by hydrophobic amino acid clusters in the central rod prevents stretched filaments between adjacent cross-links from thermal equilibration and thus provides the high G0 values. Another strong one facilitating strain stiffening is located in the tail domain with its high fraction of hydrophobic amino acid sequences. Strain stiffening is less pronounced for vimentin than for K8/K18 due to electrostatic repulsion forces partly compensating the strong attraction at filament contact points.