Thin-film flow technology in controlling the organization of materials and their properties Special Collection:Distinguished Australian Researchers

Centrifugal and shear forces are produced when solids or liquids rotate.Rotary systems and devices that use these forces,such as dynamic thin-film flow technology,are evolving continuously,improve material structure-property relationships at the nanoscale,representing a rapidly thriving and expanding field of research high with green chemistry metrics,consolidated at the inception of science.The vortex fluidic device(VFD)provides many advantages over conventional batch processing,with fluidic waves causing high shear and producing large surface areas for micro-mixing as well as rapid mass and heat transfer,enabling reactions beyond diffusion control.Combining these abilities allows for a green and innovative approach to altering materials for various research and industry applications by controlling small-scale flows and regulating molecular and macromolecular chemical reactivity,self-organization phenomena,and the synthesis of novel materials.This review highlights the aptitude of the VFD as clean technology,with an increase in efficiency for a diversity of top-down,bottom-up,and novel material transformations which benefit from effective vortex-based processing to control material structure-property relationships.

Vortex fluidic mediated one-step fabrication of polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel films with tunable surface morphologies and enhanced self-healing properties

Previous strategies for controlling the surface morphologies of polyvinyl alcohol(PVA)-based hydrogels,including freeze-drying and electrospinning,require a posttreatment process,which can affect the final textures and properties of the hydrogels.Of particular interest,it is almost impossible to control the surface morphology during the formation of PVA hydrogels using these approaches.The strategy reported in this study used the novel vortex fluidic device(VFD)technology,which for the first time provided an opportunity for one-step fabrication of PVA hydrogel films.PVA hydrogels with different surface morphologies could be readily fabricated using a VFD.By also reducing the crosslinking agent concentration,a self-healing gel with enhanced fracture stress(60%greater than that of traditionally made hydrogel)was achieved.Interestingly,the associated selfhealing property remained unchanged during the 260-s mechanical testing performed with the strain rate of 5%s-1.The VFD can effectively tune the surface morphologies of the PVA-based hydrogels and their associated properties,particularly the self-healing property.