Rakesh Kumar and Srinivasa R. Raghavan. University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Thermogelling fluids are those that transform from a sol-like or low-viscosity state at low temperatures to a gel-like or high viscosity state at higher temperatures. Such fluids could have application in drug delivery, capillary electrophoresis, and in microfluidic sensors. Currently, there exist a limited number of thermogelling fluids that can be formulated using commercially available derivatives. In this talk, we present a new thermogelling system based entirely on low-cost commercial materials. The components of our system are an associating polymer (i.e., a hydrophilic polymer with hydrophobic pendant groups), a surfactant, and a cyclodextrin. Cyclodextrins are molecular containers that have the ability to sequester hydrophobic domains within their interior. Initially, the above mixtures form a low-viscosity solution. Upon heating, the solution viscosity increases substantially at a critical temperature. The magnitude of the increase depends on the type of surfactant and cyclodextrin, as well as the microstructure formed by the surfactant. Interestingly, we find that the viscosity increase is particularly large when the surfactant molecules are assembled into vesicles. The mechanism behind the observed effects will be discussed in this talk.