SoftComp Archives

25 June 2026

Schematic illustration of the unconventional thermo-mechanical response of the DA equilibrium of humins and bismaleimide. Copyright: The authors. Published in Green Chem., 2026, 28, 6958 by The Royal Society of Chemistry 2026. This publication is licenced under CC BY-NC 3.0.

25 June 2026

New Value for Biorefinery Side Streams: Humins as Dynamic Polymer Network Precursors

Humins are a by-product of biomass processing that are typically regarded as low-value waste. Researchers at SoftComp partner KU Leuven in The Netherlands now demonstrate that these furan-rich materials can directly serve as... (Read more)

22 May 2026

A trapped air bubble deforms a draining liquid sheet, but the defect does not cross the rupture threshold. Surface tension pulls the cavity back together and the sheet heals. Image copyright: the authors, adapted figure 2(a,b) published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 054001 (2025), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.054001.

22 May 2026

Tiny Defects, Big Consequences: Why Micron-thick Films Tear Before Molecular Forces Matter

Thin liquid films often rupture while they are still a few microns thick—far earlier than classical theory predicts. This matters, for example, in the development of spray systems, foams or coatings. The key... (Read more)

12 May 2026

A liquid drop impacting a rigid non-wetting substrate starts spreading laterally (top column), whereas an elastic sphere deforms slightly and bounces off (bottom column). A new work bridges these two limits and offers a general framework for liquid-to-elastic transitions. Image copyright: Front cover image from S. Jana et al., Soft Matter 22, 2226-2236 (2026), https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SM01078K licensed under CC BY 3.0 by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

12 May 2026

Impact with Memory: How Soft Materials Bridge Liquids and Elastics

Even a familiar phenomenon like a bounce can reveal new insights into the properties of soft matter, as a new study by researchers from, among others, the SoftComp partner Durham University, UK, demonstrates... (Read more)

17 December 2025

Fig. 1: Sketch of the polarization-density phase diagram in the temperature (T)-pressure (p) thermodynamic plane obtained from classical density functional theory. Copyright: 2024 the Authors. Published by PNAS under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

17 December 2025

Water’s Hidden Switch: How Ferroelectricity May Trigger Its Mysterious Phase Transitions

Water behaves in strangely unique ways—even under everyday conditions—and scientists have long sought the origins of its anomalies. A new study lead by SoftComp partner Ca’ Foscari University of Venice reveals a surprising... (Read more)