@RobStyleSoftMat

Group leader @ETH Zürich in the Department of Materials. Soft and Living Materials

softliv.mat.ethz.ch
Joined March 2022
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If you want to make hydrogels with cool microstructures, check out Yanxia's latest work in @acsnano. This shows simple rules for creating swiss-cheese hydrogels, and a nice way to make superabsorbing materials. @soft_isa @ETH_Materials -> pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs…

Controlling Polymerization-Induced Phase Separation in the Synthesis of Porous Gels

Abstract. Porous gels, gels with solvent-filled pores that are much larger than their mesh size, are widely used in engineering and biomedical applications

pubs.acs.org
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If you're interested in any aspect of freezing research, come join us at 'Ice at the Microscale' in Switzerland this summer: ice2025.ethz.ch Registration is now open, with early bird discount until the end of May. #ice
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If you're interested in hydrogel mechanical or osmotic properties, check out @YanxiaFENG93's new paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2025.… Yanxia showed how you can use freezing-point osmometry to measure these properties, and that classical hydrogel theory doesn't really work very well.
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Super happy to share our recent work in Advanced Materials! We’ve created microcapsule arrays that autonomously “report” stress variations at the microscale by lighting up with various fluorescences.
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I'm co-organising a conference on ice physics in Switzerland next year in beautiful Ticino. Check out ice2025.ethz.ch for more details, and come join us for an amazing week!
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Ever seen how elastomers fail? 🎉Thrilled to share our latest publication "Elastomers Fail from the Edge", led by Nan Xue, in @PhysRevX! Find out how "edge" cracks play a key role in understanding this fracture process @SoftLiv_Cornell @ETH_Materials @LASSP_Cornell @CornellMSE
Physical Review X@PhysRevX22 Mar 2024
The fracture properties of elastomers depend on sample thickness because of the surprisingly three-dimensional nature of the fracture process. Read go.aps.org/43tiSgg @RobStyleSoftMat @SoftLiv_Cornell @RongLong8 @RongLong8 @CornellMSE @CornellPhysics @CUEngineering
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Super happy for our latest publication on freezing, showing how freezing and drying break wet materials in the same way. Great work from Shaohua Yang and Dominic Gerber: science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…

Dehydration drives damage in the freezing of brittle hydrogels

Freezing dehydrates brittle, wet materials and causes damage via the same mechanism that underlies mud cracking.

science.org
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ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/wo… Come join our department!
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Our paper on swimming active protein droplets is finally out! 🎊🎉 nature.com/articles/s41467-0… The main result is in the title: "Phase-separated droplets swim to their dissolution". Explanations below 🧵👇 @SoftLiv_Cornell @ETH_Materials @Cornell @CNRSingenierie @NatureComms
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The fracture properties of elastomers depend on sample thickness because of the surprisingly three-dimensional nature of the fracture process. Read go.aps.org/43tiSgg @RobStyleSoftMat @SoftLiv_Cornell @RongLong8 @RongLong8 @CornellMSE @CornellPhysics @CUEngineering
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Hate polymers? Help us destroy them with depolymerization and chemical recycling! We have two fully funded PhD positions in Polymer Chemistry at ETH! Come be our colleague! @AnastasakiLab jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOPG_e… Please Retweet
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Dominic's latest work on freezing soft materials is out, and we're super happy to have it covered in Physics: physics.aps.org/articles/v16…! Check it out to see why freezing damage is more complex than you might think. @PhysRevLett @SoftLiv_Cornell

Liquid Veins Give Ice Its Road-Wrecking Power

The unfrozen water-filled channels that crisscross multicrystal ice help feed ice growth, which can lead to fractures in materials such as asphalt and cement.

physics.aps.org
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Very happy to see our new paper lead by Carla @carlacolloids out in Nature Materials! 🎉Find out all about how elastic microphase separation produces robust bicontinuous materials! @NatureMaterials @ETH_Materials @CornellMSE nature.com/articles/s41563-0…
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Etienne's @EJambonP and Eric's preprint "Phase-Separated Droplets Swim to Their Dissolution" is out! biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… This new swimming mechanism that we call "dialytaxis" could impact intracellular transport and turn protein droplets into robots. @ETH_Materials @Cornell
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We are so pleased to announce that Katharine Jensen of Williams College has been selected as the 2023 Adhesion Society Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award winner. Can't wait to hear her talk at our next meeting in Savannah!
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I'm looking for a motivated PhD student to work with me on the freezing of Soft Matter @ETH_Materials . If you know anyone who might be interested, please do encourage them to apply: jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOPG_e…
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Everyone knows that freezing breaks stuff, but it's surprisingly poorly understood. Given a material, there's no way to know a priori what will happen to it as it freezes. We've been doing experiments to trying an unravel the mystery.
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Dominic's latest paper is part of this: it turns out that seemingly small details, like how polycrystalline ice is, can actually make a surprisingly big difference to how hard ice can push on its surroundings arxiv.org/pdf/2303.13428.pdf
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Congratulations to Rob Style who got an SNF grant @snf_ch for two PhD students to investigate #freezing #water in #soft materials! 🔬⛄️🎉 @ETH_Materials @ETH Video credit: Dominic Gerber, Rob Style (showing freezing salt water)
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