Tailoring mechanical and transport properties of polyvinyl alcohol based semi-interpenetrating hydrogels

abstract

English

One of the ways to modify the properties of hydrogels is to use semi-interpenetrating (semi-IPN) polymer networks. These hydrogels have a modifying polymer incorporated by mechanical entrapment in the background network structure. By incorporating polymers with specific behavior, mechanical and transport properties of the resulting gels can thus be controlled. Therefore, this work focused on monitoring the influence of incorporated polyelectrolyte components on the resulting mechanical and transport properties of a model hydrogel system. Due to its wide range of biomedical applications, a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel system has been chosen as a model material. In this work, PVA hydrogels were prepared either via borax - induced crosslinking or by physical gelation (cyclic freezing/thawing of aqueous PVA solutions). In order to modify the properties, polyelectrolytes (sodium polystyrene sulfonate and sodium alginate) were added to the prepared hydrogels. Mechanical properties were studied with use of oscillatory rheometry. Strain sweep test was chosen as suitable for the description of mechanical properties, this test provides information about the linear viscoelastic region. The transport properties were investigated from a macroscopic point of view, by the diffusion pair method, where the transport process proceeds from the source PVA hydrogel containing a non-zero concentration of diffusion probe (methylene blue or rhodamine 6G) to the receiving PVA hydrogel containing a zero concentration of diffusion probe with either presence or absence (in the case of reference sample) of the interpenetrating polyelectrolyte component.

hydrogel, polyvinyl alcohol, rheology, diffusion

TRUDIČOVÁ, M.; ZAHRÁDKA, J.; SEDLÁČEK, P.; PEKAŘ, M.

6. 9. 2021

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