0000000000795555
AUTHOR
Indrajit Maity
pH Feedback Systems to Program Autonomous Self-Assembly and Material Lifecycles
pH-responsive systems have gained importance for the development of smart materials and for biomedical applications because they can switch between different states by simple acid/base triggers. However, such equilibrium systems lack the autonomous behavior that is so ubiquitous in living systems that self-regulate out of equilibrium. As a contribution to the emerging field of autonomous chemical systems, we have developed pH feedback systems (pH-FS) based on the coupling of acid- and base-producing steps in chemical reaction networks. The resulting autonomous nonlinear pH curves can be coupled with a variety of pH-sensitive building blocks to program the life cycles of the associated trans…
Feedback and Communication in Active Hydrogel Spheres with pH Fronts: Facile Approaches to Grow Soft Hydrogel Structures
Abstract Compartmentalized reaction networks regulating signal processing, communication and pattern formation are central to living systems. Towards achieving life‐like materials, we compartmentalized urea‐urease and more complex urea‐urease/ester‐esterase pH‐feedback reaction networks into hydrogel spheres and investigate how fuel‐driven pH fronts can be sent out from these spheres and regulated by internal reaction networks. Membrane characteristics are installed by covering urease spheres with responsive hydrogel shells. We then encapsulate the two networks (urea‐urease and ester‐esterase) separately into different hydrogel spheres to devise communication, pattern formation and attracti…