Equilibrium gel is made from a

synthetic Synthetic may refer to: Science * Synthetic biology * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic elements, chemical elements that are not naturally found on Earth and therefore have to be created in ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

. Unlike other gels, it maintains the same consistency throughout its structure and is stable, which means it does not separate into sections of solid mass and those of more liquid mass. Equilibrium gel filtration liquid chromatography is a technique used for the quantitation of ligand binding.

Synthesis

The gel is created by suspending synthetic clay in water. The initial fluid transformed into gel after a few months with concentrations of up to 1% clay by weight. After three years the substance separated into two phases. One phase was clay-rich while the other was clay-poor. However, at concentrations above 1% no such phase separation occurred. Unlike the lower concentrations where the arrangement of clay particles was continually in flux, the particles above 1% concentration locked into a stable structure which is known as equilibrium gel. Clay particles interact in an

anisotropic Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ver ...

way differing from the typical

isotropic In physics and geometry, isotropy () is uniformity in all orientations. Precise definitions depend on the subject area. Exceptions, or inequalities, are frequently indicated by the prefix ' or ', hence '' anisotropy''. ''Anisotropy'' is also ...

way of

colloidal particle Particle size is a notion introduced for comparing dimensions of solid particles ('' flecks''), liquid particles (''droplets''), or gaseous particles ('' bubbles''). The notion of particle size applies to particles in colloids, in ecology, in gr ...

s, which normally interact with all of their nearest neighbors when forming a gel. The clay particles are disc-shaped giving them an asymmetric charge distribution with a net positive charge on their edges and net negative on their faces. This doesn't allow them to interact with their neighbors, and they tend to form T-bonds. This lets clay particles connect in a chain and allows the gel to form at a low density.

Properties

Equilibrium gel is similar to any gel in the way that it is a colloid in which the disperse phase has combined with the dispersion medium to produce a semisolid material. The difference with equilibrium gel is that it will not separate over time into two separate phase like all other gels. In a study taking place over seven years, scientist concluded that colloidal clays at slightly higher concentrations evolved reversibly and continuously from the empty liquid state to an arrested structure. From this observed properties the name equilibrium gel was derived. Equilibrium gel shares the traits of all

soft matter Soft matter or soft condensed matter is a type of matter that can be deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress which is of similar magnitude to thermal fluctuations. The science of soft matter is a subfield of condensed ...

. Soft matter is a conceptual term that can be used to categorize

polymers A polymer () is a substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, b ...

liquid crystals Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal can flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a common direction as i ...

colloids A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others exten ...

amphiphilic In chemistry, an amphiphile (), or amphipath, is a chemical compound possessing both hydrophilic (''water-loving'', polar) and lipophilic (''fat-loving'', nonpolar) properties. Such a compound is called amphiphilic or amphipathic. Amphiphilic c ...

molecules,

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

granular Granularity (also called graininess) is the degree to which a material or system is composed of distinction (philosophy), distinguishable pieces, granular material, "granules" or grain, "grains" (metaphorically). It can either refer to the exten ...

and biological materials. One of the main characteristics of Equilibrium gel as with

is that it displays various mesoscopic structures originating from a large number of internal degrees of freedoms of each molecule.

Applications

Scientists are already coming up with potential applications for equilibrium gel. One such application is batteries containing a gel electrolyte. Producing a relatively high power for a given weight, the battery could be incorporated into microscope devices if the gel could be made at a low enough density. Equilibrium gel could also be used as coatings to deliver drugs into the body. Using the gel for coatings instead of other substances would be beneficial. This is due to the fact that the gel would allow the coatings to be lighter, thus reducing the amount of material that enters the body. The coatings protect against the bodies

immune system The immune system is a network of biological systems that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to bacteria, as well as Tumor immunology, cancer cells, Parasitic worm, parasitic ...

and dissolve when the drug reaches its target.

Notes and references

{{Reflist Sculpture materials