Nature Communications (Aug 2018)

Role of hydrogen bonding in hysteresis observed in sorption-induced swelling of soft nanoporous polymers

  • Mingyang Chen,
  • Benoit Coasne,
  • Robert Guyer,
  • Dominique Derome,
  • Jan Carmeliet

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05897-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Water uptake of natural polymers is accompanied by swelling and changes in the internal structure of the polymeric system but the exact mechanism of water-uptake and swelling remained unknown. Here the authors use atom-scale simulations to identify a molecular mechanism which is responsible for hysteresis in sorption-induced swelling in natural polymers.