Fabrication of salt–hydrogel marbles and hollow-shell microcapsules by an aerosol gelation technique

We designed a new method for preparation of liquid marbles by using hydrophilic particles. Salt–hydrogel marbles were prepared by atomising droplets of hydrogel solution in a cold air column followed by rolling of the collected hydrogel microbeads in a bed of micrometre sized salt particles. Evaporation of the water from the resulting salt marbles with a hydrogel core yielded hollow-shell salt microcapsules. The method is not limited to hydrophilic particles and could potentially be also applied to particles of other materials, such as graphite, carbon black, silica and others. The structure and morphology of the salt–hydrogel marbles were analysed by SEM and their particle size distributions were measured. We also tested the dissolution times of the dried salt marbles and compared them with those of table salt samples under the same conditions. The high accessible surface area of the shell of salt microcrystals allows a faster initial release of salt from the hollow-shell salt capsules upon their dissolution in water than from the same amount of table salt. The results suggest that such hollow-shell particles could find applications as a table salt substitute in dry food products and salt seasoning formulations with reduced salt content without the loss of saltiness

Smart soaps: stimulus responsive soap–hydrogel bead composites for controlled dissolution and release of actives

We designed pressure responsive soap–hydrogel bead composites by incorporating agar hydrogel beads of different size distributions within a molten soap matrix at various volume fractions. Upon cooling, the combined suspension of hydrogel beads into the molten soap was set into a composite of soap matrix. We demonstrate pressure driven syneresis of water from the soap–hydrogel bead composites upon compression. This allowed a release of active components embedded in the hydrogel beads upon application of pressure on these “smart” soap composites. We found that the dissolution rate of these composites generally increases with the volume percentage of hydrogel beads. We achieved a composite dissolution rate approximately 2.8 times higher than the soap control sample without hydrogel beads. However, the composite dissolution rate was independent of the size of the embedded hydrogel beads. We studied the release rates of active components encapsulated within the hydrogel beads used to prepare the composites. It was found that the release rate can be controlled in three different ways: varying the hydrogel beads size, using different concentrations of the gelling polymer used to make the hydrogel and also by co-encapsulating an oppositely charged polyelectrolyte along with the active encapsulated species. We found that the composites compressional strength decreased with an increasing volume percentage of hydrogel beads incorporated within the soap composite. Young's modulus showed a maximum when 7.5% by volume of hydrogel beads were used for composite preparation. These fast-dissolving soap–hydrogel composites contain significantly less raw materials and would reduce the pollution of waste water with surface active components. We envisage that soap–hydrogel bead composites could improve the sustainability of the soap-producing industry and could find their application within the hotel business, where they could reduce costs and the waste of millions of partially used soap bars discarded on a daily basis

Sound absorption properties of porous composites fabricated by a hydrogel templating technique

We have used a hydrogel templating technique followed by the subsequent evaporation of water present to fabricate porous cement and porous PDMS composites, and we have analyzed their sound absorption properties. All experiments were carried out with hydrogel slurries of broad bead size distributions. Porous PDMS and cement composites were produced with porosities of up to 80% and 70%, respectively. Scanning electron microscope analysis shows fibrous domains within the voids created by the hydrogel in the cement samples and open pore network in the PDMS composites of initial hydrogel content higher than 70 vol%. Sound absorption was improved with respect to control nonporous samples in all composites with porosities higher than 60 vol%, where an open pore structure was formed. The porous PDMS and porous cement produced by this method show better sound absorption at 200-400 Hz and 1200-1800 Hz frequency ranges when compared with the sound absorption in the intermediate frequencies range between 400 and 1000 Hz

Fabrication of novel lightweight composites by a hydrogel templating technique

A non-conventional way of preparation of lightweight porous materials by templating hydrogels with a range of hydrophilic and hydrophobic scaffolding materials was explored. Sub-millimetre hydrogel slurries of polyacrylamide and gellan gum were templated with aqueous slurries of cement, gypsum and clay–cement mixtures or alternatively, dispersed in curable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). After the solidification of the scaffolding material, the evaporation of structured hydrogel produced porous composite material whose pores mimic the hydrogel meso-structure. We studied the density, volume contraction and the compression strength of the formed porous materials as function of the hydrogel initial volume fraction. This versatile hydrogel templating method can be applied very inexpensively to a range of scaffolding materials to yield lightweight porous materials with a great potential for use in the building industry in heat and sound insulation panels, an alternative to aerated concretes, lightweight building blocks, porous rubber substitutes and foam shock absorbers

Sound absorption of porous cement composites: effects of the porosity and the pore size

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York. We prepared sound absorbing cement–hydrogel composites using a hydrogel slurry templating technique. We air-dried the wet cement composites containing a varying percentage and size of entrapped hydrogel microbeads to produce a porous cement with a controlled porosity and pore size matching the hydrogel bead distribution. The composites porosity, mass density, compressional strength and sound absorption properties were analysed. SEM analysis showed residual domains from the dried hydrogels beads within the voids created by the hydrogel bead evaporation in the cement samples. The sound absorption coefficient of the composite varied with the templated hydrogel bead size and the overall porosity. The composite samples made with hydrogel beads of average size 0.7 mm showed high absorption coefficients between 0.5 and 0.80 for 500–800 Hz for 50 vol% porosity. Samples produced by templating hydrogels of 1 mm bead size and 70 vol% porosity showed an increased absorption over the sound frequency range 200–2000 Hz. Templating a mixture of the 1.6 and 1.0 mm hydrogel beads slurries with cement slurry did not appear to yield synergistic effect in the sound absorption of the produced porous composites compared to samples made from the separate slurries. The mechanical strength of the obtained porous cement composites decreased with the increase of porosity. Such low fabrication-cost and environmentally friendly composites have a potential to be used as passive sound absorbers by the building and transport industries