Utilizing bioinspired metal-coordinate bonding in the solidification of soft gels via crosslinking, dehydration and mineralization

In nature, most organisms embark on the journey of life in a predominantly soft and compliant state and go through a series of material solidification processes to serve a multitude of complex functions at various life stages. Many of these material transitions occur via an organic-inorganic processing pathway that involves a genetically programmed hierarchy of spatiotemporally orchestrated macromolecular crosslinking, dehydration, and mineralization events. With the growing need for sustainable material processing, the interest has increased in understanding the underlying physical-chemical mechanisms that control the change in properties during such biological material transitions. Hence, in this thesis, we utilized polymers in combination with metal-coordinating ligands to form various types of metal-crosslinked networks as a platform to explore the possibly synergistic roles of crosslinking, dehydration, and mineralization in building solid materials out of soft gels.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Sungjin,Ph.D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Niels Holten-Andersen.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127905

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127905