Amongst colloidal gels, those designed by the assembly of anisotropic colloidal particles tend to form fibrillar gels and are attracting interest as artificial cell growth environments since they have a structure reminiscent of biological extracellular matrices. Their properties can be tuned by controlling the size, shape, and rigidity of the nanoparticles used during their formation. Herein, the relationship between the physical and mechanical properties of the nanocolloidal building blocks and the properties of the resulting gels is investigated. Thermoresponsive particles with different aspect ratios and controlled rigidity were prepared, and the gelation and the properties of the resulting gels were studied. The results show how the aspect ratio and rigidity of polymer colloids tune the properties of the gels. An increase in the aspect ratio of the nanocolloid used led to a sol–gel transition observed at lower particle concentration, but an increase in the rigidity of the nanocolloids delayed the sol–gel transition to higher concentration. However, at a constant concentration, increases in the anisotropy produced gels with higher modulus and lower yield strain. Similarly, an increase in rigidity of the colloids increased the modulus and reduced the yield strain of the resulting gels.

在胶体凝胶中，通过组装各向异性胶体颗粒设计的胶体凝胶倾向于形成纤维状凝胶，并且由于它们具有让人联想到生物细胞外基质的结构，因此作为人工细胞生长环境引起了人们的兴趣。它们的性质可以通过控制其形成过程中使用的纳米粒子的大小、形状和刚度来调整。在此，研究了纳米胶体结构单元的物理和机械性能与所得凝胶的性能之间的关系。制备了具有不同纵横比和可控刚度的热响应颗粒，并研究了所得凝胶的凝胶化和性能。结果显示了聚合物胶体的纵横比和刚度如何调节凝胶的性能。所用纳米胶体纵横比的增加导致在较低颗粒浓度下观察到溶胶-凝胶转变，但纳米胶体刚度的增加延迟了溶胶-凝胶向较高浓度的转变。然而，在恒定浓度下，各向异性的增加产生了具有更高模量和更低屈服应变的凝胶。类似地，胶体刚度的增加增加了模量并降低了所得凝胶的屈服应变。