Extracting hydrogel properties by watching hydrogel particles moving through solid ice
Abstract
Strikingly, when hydrogel particles are embedded in ice in a temperature gradient, they move through the solid ice towards warmer temperatures, while swelling as they warm up. This motion comes from a flow of unfrozen water through the hydrogel mesh, driven by a process known as `cryosuction'. Here, we show how one can use this behavior to measure -- with extremely high resolution -- a range of different hydrogel transport properties, and how these change as a hydrogel deswells. These properties include permeability, compressibility, and poroelastic diffusivity: all of which are challenging to measure, but widely important for phenomena involving swelling, dehydration, transpiration and filtration. We demonstrate the measurement technique using poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels. The technique uses picoliter-scale hydrogel volumes, and yields measurements of hydrogel properties that are consistent with existing literature data. The high resolution of our measurements also allows us to test commonly-used, classical predictions for hydrogel properties (derived assuming an idealized, homogeneous polymer network in the hydrogel). We show that these classical predictions do not work well, highlighting the need for new models that can accurately describe real hydrogels.
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BibTeX
@misc{feng2026extracting,
title = {{Extracting hydrogel properties by watching hydrogel particles moving through solid ice}},
author = {Yanxia Feng and Se-Hyeong Jung and Camillo Sirvinski and Dan Balkanyi and Federico Paratore and Lucio Isa and Robert W. Style},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.29904},
eprint = {2609.29904},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29904},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Extracting hydrogel properties by watching hydrogel particles moving through solid ice
AU - Yanxia Feng
AU - Se-Hyeong Jung
AU - Camillo Sirvinski
AU - Dan Balkanyi
AU - Federico Paratore
AU - Lucio Isa
AU - Robert W. Style
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.29904
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29904
AB - Strikingly, when hydrogel particles are embedded in ice in a temperature gradient, they move through the solid ice towards warmer temperatures, while swelling as they warm up. This motion comes from a flow of unfrozen water through the hydrogel mesh, driven by a process known as `cryosuction'. Here, we show how one can use this behavior to measure -- with extremely high resolution -- a range of different hydrogel transport properties, and how these change as a hydrogel deswells. These properties include permeability, compressibility, and poroelastic diffusivity: all of which are challenging to measure, but widely important for phenomena involving swelling, dehydration, transpiration and filtration. We demonstrate the measurement technique using poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels. The technique uses picoliter-scale hydrogel volumes, and yields measurements of hydrogel properties that are consistent with existing literature data. The high resolution of our measurements also allows us to test commonly-used, classical predictions for hydrogel properties (derived assuming an idealized, homogeneous polymer network in the hydrogel). We show that these classical predictions do not work well, highlighting the need for new models that can accurately describe real hydrogels.
ER -