Gels and Other Soft Amorphous Solids
ACS Symposium Series

Gels are ubiquitous both in materials science and biology. Interest in the behavior of this class of soft materials has increased significantly in the last decades as new experimental approaches have been developed to synthesize and characterize gels, and as theoretical and computational methods have advanced to model the structure and properties of these complex materials. For example, molecular simulation is now an essential tool to investigate gels and other types of soft matter where experimental measurements are not possible. The growth of this field to include applications in biology and medicine as also provided much impetus to gels research. The goal of this volume is to discuss recent progress in gel science. The chapters cover a wide variety of topics from polymer chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, reflecting the interdisciplinary character of this field. A knowledge of the physical and chemical behavior of gels is essential for understanding, designing, and controlling material properties and performance. Gels can be synthesized with either flexible or stiff chains, linear or branched, and their length can also be tailored, etc. The network chains can be bonded to each other by chemical crosslinks or physical bonds involving van der Waals interactions, dipole-dipole interactions, hydrogen or ionic bonds, or pi-pi or pi-charge interactions. In addition to traditional polymer gels, this volume also focuses on low molecular mass organic gelators, relatively new, but rapidly growing, research direction in gel science. Special attention is devoted to the diverse applications of gels; using hydrogels for cleaning the painted surface of artwork (conservation of cultural heritage such as paintings and sculptures), developing advanced drug delivery systems, investigating the mechanism of setting of cement and hardening of concrete, etc.

Dr. Ferenc Horkay, Research Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), obtained his PhD in Chemistry at the Loránd Eötvös University (Budapest, Hungary) and DSc from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a Professor at the Loránd Eötvös University, an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Freiburg (Germany), and a visiting professor at the University of Grenoble (France). In the USA, he worked as a researcher at the Polymers Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and at the Corporate Research Center of the General Electric Company. His scientific interest is to understand the fundamental principles that govern molecular interactions and define structural hierarchy in complex synthetic and biopolymer systems, such as biological tissues, gels, soft materials, self-assemblies and functional nanostructures. At the NIH, he launched a world class research program in biopolymer science. He developed a novel approach to determine the characteristic length scales that control the osmotic properties of biopolymer and biological gels by combining osmotic, neutron, x-ray and light scattering measurements. This multiscale characterization approach makes it possible to describe the hierarchy of length scales that arise in self-organizing biological materials and provides quantitative information on the effect of ions on the conformation and organization of charged biopolymer molecules and their assemblies. Knowledge of the consequences of ion mediated structural changes on the macroscopic properties provides insight how tissue morphology affects its function. Dr. Horkay has published more than 200 original research papers (several of them are highly cited), 16 book chapters, and edited 10 books. He is the inventor/co-inventor of 16 issued patents. He is regularly invited/keynote/plenary speaker at conferences, serves as chair and/or organizer for many symposia and workshops. He organized numerous symposia at con