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Gels
Special Issues
Recent Advances in Physical Gels and Their Applications
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Recent Advances in Physical Gels and Their Applications

A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This special issue belongs to the section "Gel Chemistry and Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2025 | Viewed by 1172

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Claudia Tomasini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dipartimento di Chimica Giacomo Ciamician, Università di Bologna, 2-40126 Bologna, Italy
Interests: organic chemistry; sustainable peptide materials; controlled release; water remediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Demetra Giuri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dipartimento di Chimica Giacomo Ciamician, Università di Bologna, 2-40126 Bologna, Italy
Interests: self-assembled peptide gelators; low molecular weight gels; applications in cosmetics; drug delivery; water remediation; multicomponent systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Gels have gained increasing attention due to the high demand for their use in fundamental research and practical applications. Gels are solid materials consisting of at least one substantially cross-linked network (including networks derived from polymers and low-molecular-weight gelators) and one liquid. Gels can be divided into two classes, namely chemical and physical gels, depending on the bonds involved. In the first case, the network is held together by covalent bonds, which make chemical gels hard to break and are usually irreversible. Physical gels, on the other hand, are held together by weak supramolecular interactions, such as π-π stacking and H-bonds, and for this reason, such gels are often called supramolecular gels. Physical gels are generally weaker than chemical gels and quite easy to break, but they are also usually easy to reform. The versatility of physical gels makes them applicable to many emerging and diverse fields, such as drug delivery, cell culture media, optoelectronics, biomineralization, water remediation, and cosmetics. 

In this Special Issue, we will focus on recent advances in the development of physical gels meant for a specific application. Papers that describe progresses involved in emerging applications of this class of smart materials are welcomed in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Claudia Tomasini
Dr. Demetra Giuri
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • physical gels
  • smart materials
  • supramolecular gels
  • self-assembly
  • applications

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 4336 KiB  
Article
New Supramolecular Hydrogels Based on Diastereomeric Dehydrotripeptide Mixtures for Potential Drug Delivery Applications
by Carlos B. P. Oliveira, André Carvalho, Renato B. Pereira, David M. Pereira, Loic Hilliou, Peter J. Jervis, José A. Martins and Paula M. T. Ferreira
Gels 2024, 10(10), 629; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels10100629 - 30 Sep 2024
Viewed by 872
Abstract
Self-assembly of peptide building blocks offers unique opportunities for bottom-up preparation of exquisite nanostructures, nanoarchitectures, and nanostructured bulk materials, namely hydrogels. In this work we describe the synthesis, characterization, gelation, and rheological properties of new dehydrotripeptides, Cbz-L-Lys(Cbz)-L,D-Asp-∆Phe-OH [...] Read more.
Self-assembly of peptide building blocks offers unique opportunities for bottom-up preparation of exquisite nanostructures, nanoarchitectures, and nanostructured bulk materials, namely hydrogels. In this work we describe the synthesis, characterization, gelation, and rheological properties of new dehydrotripeptides, Cbz-L-Lys(Cbz)-L,D-Asp-∆Phe-OH and (2-Naph)-L-Lys(2-Naph)-L,D-Asp-∆Phe-OH, containing a N-terminal lysine residue Nα,ε-bis-capped with carboxybenzyl (Cbz) and 2-Naphthylacetyl (2-Naph) aromatic moieties, an aspartic acid residue (Asp), and a C-terminal dehydrophenylalanine (∆Phe) residue. The dehydrotripeptides were obtained as diastereomeric mixtures (L,L,Z and L,D,Z), presumably via aspartimide chemistry. The dehydrotripeptides afforded hydrogels at exceedingly low concentrations (0.1 and 0.04 wt%). The hydrogels revealed exceptional elasticity (G’ = 5.44 × 104 and 3.43 × 106 Pa) and self-healing properties. STEM studies showed that the diastereomers of the Cbz-capped peptide undergo co-assembly, generating a fibrillar 3D network, while the diastereomers of the 2-Naph-capped dehydropeptide seem to undergo self-sorting, originating a fibril network with embedded spheroidal nanostructures. The 2-Naph-capped hydrogel displayed full fast recovery following breakup by a mechanical stimulus. Spheroidal nanostructures are absent in the recovered hydrogel, as seen by STEM, suggesting that the mechanical stimulus triggers rearrangement of the spheroidal nanostructures into fibers. Overall, this study demonstrates that diastereomeric mixtures of peptides can be efficacious gelators. Importantly, these results suggest that the structure (size, aromaticity) of the capping group can have a directing effect on the self-assembly (co-assembly vs. self-sorting) of diastereomers. The cytotoxicity of the newly synthesized gelators was evaluated using human keratinocytes (HaCaT cell line). The results indicated that the two gelators exhibited some cytotoxicity, having a small impact on cell viability. In sustained release experiments, the influence of the charge on model drug compounds was assessed in relation to their release rate from the hydrogel matrix. The hydrogels demonstrated sustained release for methyl orange (anionic), while methylene blue (cationic) was retained within the network. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Physical Gels and Their Applications)
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