This talk describes a family of supramolecular hydrogels that can suppress or nearly completely inhibit ice formation at supercoolings as low as 128 K. The hydrogels use two ways to mimic how Nature prevents freezing in biological organisms: 1) hydrogen bonding of water to polymer chains and 2) nanoconfinement of water on a length-scale of &lt;10 nm between hydrophobic moieties. Hydrogels that will be discussed are based on statistical copolymers of either dimethyl acrylamide (DMA) and 2-(N-ethylperfluorooctane sulfonamido)ethyl acrylate (FOSA) or 2- hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) and 2-(N-ethylperfluorooctane sulfonamido)ethyl methacrylate (FOSM). Depending on the concentration and choice of the hydrophobic species, the hydrogels contained from 40 – 300 wt % water and the amount of non-freezing, supercooled water varied from 5 – 99 %. HEA/FOSM hydrogels composed of ≥18 mol % FOSM and containing 50-65 wt % water inhibited ~99 % water from freezing at temperatures at 128 K. The ability of these hydrogels to inhibit ice formation in soft matter with high water content is unprecedented and provides a facile pathway for controlling water crystallization in a variety of common, but important technologies.

Antifreeze nanostructured hydrogels based on supramolecular copolymers

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.