Physical properties of polyacrylamide gels probed by AFM and rheology

Yara Abidine; Valérie M. Laurent; Richard Michel; Alain Duperray; Liviu Iulian Palade; Claude Verdier

doi:10.1209/0295-5075/109/38003

All issues

Volume 109 / No 3 (February 2015)

EPL, 109 3 (2015) 38003

Abstract

Issue		EPL Volume 109, Number 3, February 2015


Article Number		38003
Number of page(s)		6
Section		Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/109/38003
Published online		19 February 2015

EPL, 109 (2015) 38003

Physical properties of polyacrylamide gels probed by AFM and rheology

Yara Abidine¹^,2, Valérie M. Laurent¹^,2, Richard Michel¹^,2, Alain Duperray³^,4, Liviu Iulian Palade⁵^(a) and Claude Verdier¹^,2^(b)

¹ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, LIPHY - F-38000 Grenoble, France
² CNRS, LIPHY - F-38000 Grenoble, France
³ INSERM, IAB - F-38000 Grenoble, France
⁴ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, IAB - F-38000 Grenoble, France
⁵ Université Lyon, CNRS, Institut Camille Jordan, UMR 5208, INSA-Lyon, Pôle de Mathématiques F-69621 Villeurbanne, France

^(a) Liviu-Iulian.Palade@insa-lyon.fr
^(b) Claude.Verdier@ujf-grenoble.fr

Received: 2 October 2014
Accepted: 24 January 2015

Abstract

Polymer gels have been shown to behave as viscoelastic materials but only a small amount of data is usually provided in the glass transition. In this paper, the dynamic moduli $G^{\prime}$ and $G^{\prime\prime}$ of polyacrylamide hydrogels are investigated using both an AFM in contact force modulation mode and a classical rheometer. The validity is shown by the matching of the two techniques. Measurements are carried out on gels of increasing polymer concentration in a wide frequency range. A model based on fractional derivatives is successfully used, covering the whole frequency range. $G_{\text{N}}^{0}$ , the plateau modulus, as well as several other parameters are obtained at low frequencies. The model also predicts the slope a of both moduli in the glass transition, and a transition frequency $f_{\text{T}}$ is introduced to separate the gel-like behavior with the glassy state. Its variation with polymer content c gives a dependence $f_{\text{T}}\sim c^{1.6}$ , in good agreement with previous theories. Therefore, the AFM data provides new information on the physics of polymer gels.

PACS: 82.35.Lr – Physical properties of polymers / 83.80.Kn – Physical gels and microgels / 83.60.Bc – Linear viscoelasticity

© EPLA, 2015

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