Scientific publications

Microbial adhesion and the subsequent formation of resilient biofilms at surfaces are decisively influenced by substrate properties, such as the topography. To date, studies that quantitatively link surface topography and bacterial adhesion are scarce, as both are not straightforward to quantify. To fill this gap, surface morphometry combined with single-cell force spectroscopy was performed on surfaces with irregular topographies on the nano-scale. As surfaces, hydrophobized silicon wafers were used that were etched to exhibit surface structures in the same size range as the bacterial cell wall molecules. The surface structures were characterized by a detailed morphometric analysis based on Minkowski functionals revealing both qualitatively similar features and quantitatively different extensions. We find that as the size of the nanostructures increases, the adhesion forces decrease in a way that can be quantified by the area of the surface that is available for the tethering of cell wall molecules. In addition, we observe a bactericidal effect, which is more pronounced on substrates with taller structures but does not influence adhesion. Our results can be used for a targeted development of 3D-structured materials for/against bio-adhesion. Moreover, the morphometric analysis can serve as a future gold standard for characterizing a broad spectrum of material structures.

Nanoparticulate systems intended for the use in drug delivery are getting more and more complex. Composite nanoparticles, such as core-shell particles are designed in order to be used for co-delivery of drugs or a modified release profile. Often the structure can only be postulated by the preparation process, such as surface polymerization, but cannot be experimentally determined due to a lack of appropriate analytical methods. Here a core-shell particle system composed of two biodegradable and biocompatible materials, gelatin and PLGA, is developed. In order to reveal the actual polymer distribution, a combination of cryo-transmission electron microscopy and energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy was established. Using the occurrence of specific elements in combination with degradation kinetics induced by the electron beam allows to conclude on the nanoparticles’ architecture. Based on these methods and thus, the particle composition, the drug delivery system can be further developed.

The fibrotic encapsulation, which is mainly accompanied by an excessive proliferation of fibroblasts, is an undesired phenomenon after the implantation of various medical devices. Beside the surface chemistry, the topography plays also a major role in the fibroblast-surface interaction. In the present study, one-dimensional aluminium oxide (1D Al2O3) nanostructures with different distribution densities were prepared to reveal the response of human fibroblasts to the surface topography. The cell size, the cell number and the ability to form well-defined actin fibres and focal adhesions were significantly impaired with increasing distribution density of the 1D Al2O3 nanostructures on the substratum.

We propose a theory based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics to describe the mechanical behavior of an active polymer gel created by the inclusion of molecular motors in its solvent. When activated, these motors attach to the chains of the polymer network and shorten them creating a global contraction of the gel, which mimics the active behavior of a cytoskeleton. The power generated by these motors is obtained by an ATP hydrolysis reaction, which transduces chemical energy into mechanical work. The latter is described by an increment of strain energy in the gel due to an increased stiffness. This effect is described with an increment of the cross-link density in the polymer network, which reduces its entropy. The theory then considers polymer network swelling and species diffusion to describe the transient passive behavior of the gel. We finally formulate the problem of uniaxial contraction of a slab of gel and compare the results with experiments, showing good agreement.

This paper outlines an elastoplastic design approach for beam and plate structures subjected to transverse pressure loads and thermal stresses. The purpose of this study is to overcome the limitations of yield-limited designs by exploiting plastic design theorems. The feasible design space of a clamped beam/plate structure subjected to combined thermomechanical loads is explored considering shakedown (stabilized plasticity) as the design criteria. Analytic and numerical solutions are developed that show that allowing shakedown to occur extends the design space and acceptable loading range. In addition, the structures considered here are also prone to buckling due to thermal loads. In this work, interactions between thermal buckling and shakedown are investigated using numerical parametric studies. It is found that buckling enhances elastoplastic shakedown performance which expands the feasible design domain significantly when high aspect ratio beams are considered. In particular it is shown that the enhancement is 2–4 times for the range of aspect ratios examined.

An electro-chemo-mechanical formulation of ion transport in solid electrolytes, in particular for binary systems, is presented. Starting with conservation laws and the second law of thermodynamic, we state a consistent Helmholtz-energy-based framework taking electrostatics, component transport and nonlinear elastic mechanical interaction into account. With the help of finite strain continuum mechanics, we include the effect of geometry changes on ion transport. Changes of local concentration cause swelling and shrinkage and hence stress assisted diffusion. Further coupling originates via an osmotic pressure. Since binary systems are of special interest in battery applications, we formulate both, a fully resolved and an electroneutral model for ion transport. The latter turns out to be an extended version of Newman’s concentrated solution theory taking mechanical effects into account. We demonstrate the importance of these mechanical effects by means of double layers adjacent to blocking electrodes and concentration profiles during galvanostatic charging. Further, we investigate the effect of external deformation as, e.g. found in dendrite growth.

The Butler-Volmer equation is widely used to describe ion-transport across an interface in electrochemical systems. In recent years, a strong focus has been placed on solid state batteries with Li-metal electrodes which promise an increase of energy density and safety, but also introduce new complexity, for example, due to the process of material deposition and stripping which is conceptually different to intercalation and de-intercalation. Especially the understanding of the heterogeneous growth of lithium, in the form of dendrites, requires a consistent model taking all mechanical effects into account. In this work, we use transition state theory based on a purely energetic concept to derive the Butler-Volmer equation for a monovalent reaction M⇌M++e− that is also consistent with the Nernst equation and discuss the energetic contribution due to deposition and stripping. With the help of the Bronsted-Evans-Polanyi principle, we generalize several approaches to include mechanical stress in the Butler-Volmer equation, discuss the underlying assumptions and suggest, through theoretical considerations, a fairly simple extended version of the Butler-Volmer equation. Beside addressing the novel aspects of the effects of mechanics, which impacts both open circuit potential and exchange current density, this work also sharpens the need for consistent use of the Butler-Volmer equation.

Recent work has shown that sharp spectral edges in acoustic stimuli might have advantageous effects in the treatment of tonal tinnitus. In the course of this paper, we evaluate the long-term effects of spectrally notched hearing aids on the subjective tinnitus distress. By merging recent experimental work with a computational tinnitus model, we modified the commercially available behind-the-ear hearing aids so that a frequency band of 0.5 octaves, centered on the patient's individual tinnitus frequency, was blocked out. Those hearing aids employ a steep notch filter that filters environmental sounds to suppress the tinnitus-related changes in neural firing by lateral inhibition. The computational model reveals a renormalization of pathologically increased neural response reliability and synchrony in response to spectrally modified input. The target group, fitted with spectrally notched hearing aids, was matched with a comparable control group, fitted with standard hearing aids of the same type but without a notch filter. We analyze the subjective self-assessment by tinnitus questionnaires, and we monitor the objective distress correlates in auditory evoked response phase data. Both, subjective and objective results show a noticeable trend of a larger therapeutic benefit for notched hearing correction.

Thrombosis and bacterial infection are major problems in cardiovascular implants. Here we demonstrated that a superhydrophobic surface composed of poly(bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethoxy)phosphazene) (PTFEP)–Al2O3 hybrid nanowires (NWs) is effective to reduce both platelet adhesion/activation and bacterial adherence/colonization. The proposed approach allows surface modification of cardiovascular implants which have 3D complex geometries.

During charging of a battery with a lithium metal electrode and a solid electrolyte, a crack in the electrolyte adjacent to the metal electrode will be infiltrated by lithium, forming a dendrite. As further lithium is inserted into the crack, pressure in it will build up. The pressure in the lithium in the crack rises very rapidly during normal rates of charging, reaching 1 GPa within seconds. Such high pressure may cause the crack to propagate; crack extension will relax the pressure in the crack, but high pressure will be restored quickly in the longer crack, which will again propagate. This process continues until the crack touches the counter electrode, causing a short-circuit. Alternatively, the high pressure in the crack can block the redox reaction that injects lithium into it, making the crack non-propagating. We find that this situation occurs for cracks shorter than a critical length. Therefore, to avoid short-circuits of this type it is a requirement that the pressure be sufficient to block the redox reaction before dendrite extension takes place. This places restrictions on allowable lengths for pre-existing cracks and on permissible charging rates. We also find that dendrite cracks can grow subcritically due to cyclic fatigue.