Search results for "Self-healing hydrogels"
showing 10 items of 207 documents
Surface-Assisted Self-Assembly of a Hydrogel by Proton Diffusion
2018
International audience; Controlling supramolecular growth at solid surfaces is of great importance to expand the scope of supramolecular materials. Here we describe a dendritic benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide peptide conjugate whose assembly can be triggered by a pH jump. Stopped flow kinetics and mathematical modeling provide a quantitative understanding of the nucleation, elongation, and fragmentation behavior in solution. To assemble the molecule at a solid-liquid interface, we use proton diffusion from the bulk. The latter needs to be slower than the lag phase of nucleation in order to progressively grow a hydrogel outwards from the surface. Our method of surface-assisted self-assembly is …
Thermodynamic control over energy dissipation modes in dual-network hydrogels based on metal-ligand coordination.
2020
Modern polymeric hydrogels use reversible bonds to mimic biological functionalities. However, true biological materials benefit from several supramolecular elements and deliver multiple functions at the same time. To approach similar creation and control of multiple different functional elements in a synthetic soft material, we develop a model dual-network hydrogel in which multiple energy dissipating modes are formed by metal–ligand coordination and regulated by their association thermodynamics. This idea is realized by using linear and tetra-arm poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) precursors with complementary reactive end groups. The former also carries terpyridine ligands on both ends, which fo…
Wavelength-Selective Softening of Hydrogel Networks.
2021
Photoresponsive hydrogels hold key potential in advanced biomedical applications including tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery, as well as intricately engineered functions such as biosensing, soft robotics, and bioelectronics. Herein, the wavelength-dependent degradation of bio-orthogonal poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels is reported, using three selective activation levels. Specifically, three chromophores are exploited, that is, ortho-nitrobenzene, dimethyl aminobenzene, and bimane, each absorbing light at different wavelengths. By examining their photochemical action plots, the wavelength-dependent reactivity of the photocleavable moieties is determined. The wavele…
Near-Infrared Spectra of Water Confined in Silica Hydrogels in the Temperature Interval 365−5 K
2002
We have used a sol−gel technique to obtain optically transparent hydrogels in which water is trapped within a tridimensional disordered silica matrix. A suitable aging of these hydrogels enables to have transparent noncracking samples down to cryogenic temperatures. We report the optical absorption spectra, in the near-infrared region, of water trapped in our silica hydrogels, measured in the temperature range 365−5 K, and we compare them with the same spectra of liquid water, measured in the temperature range 365−263 K. The data show that it is possible to have noncrystallizing water even at 5 K: indeed, the overtone bands at ∼1.41 μm and at ∼1.155 μmtypical of “weakly bonded” water molec…
Porous structure of Purevision™ versus Focus® Night&Day™ and conventional hydrogel contact lenses
2002
The surface and bulk structures of hydrogel contact lenses that contain siloxane moieties, Purevision™ (balafilcon A) and Focus®Night&Day™ (lotrafilcon A), were investigated. Standard hydrogel lenses of low (Seequence®), medium (Acuvue®), and high water content (Precision UV®) were used as controls. All the lenses were dehydrated in a series of ethanol solutions of increased concentration, critical-point dried in CO2, and sputter coated with gold/palladium before they were examined by scanning electron microscopy. Of all lenses examined, only the balafilcon lenses presented, in addition to the polymer network porosity characteristic of all hydrogels, a macroporous structure that was observe…
Chemical hydrogels based on a hyaluronic acid-graft-α-elastin derivative as potential scaffolds for tissue engineering
2013
In this work hyaluronic acid (HA) functionalized with ethylenediamine (EDA) has been employed to graft α-elastin. In particular a HA-EDA derivative bearing 50 mol% of pendant amino groups has been successfully employed to produce the copolymer HA-EDA-g-α-elastin containing 32% w/w of protein. After grafting with α-elastin, remaining free amino groups reacted with ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDGE) for producing chemical hydrogels, proposed as scaffolds for tissue engineering. Swelling degree, resistance to chemical and enzymatic hydrolysis, as well as preliminary biological properties of HA-EDA-g-α-elastin/EGDGE scaffold have been evaluated and compared with a HA-EDA/EGDGE scaffold. T…
Switchable surface structured hydrogel coatings
2017
Switchable surface structures based on hydrogels are an emerging field in material science, microfluidics, soft robotics and anti-fouling. Here, we describe a novel method that uses a photo-cross-linkable terpolymer to create a hydrogel coating with a switchable surface structure. The terpolymer is based on poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) and it is shown that simple coating technologies like slit die coating can be used under ambient conditions. It is also shown that the swelling ratio of the coating is controlled by the energy dose of ultraviolet (UV) light. Simple and complex surface structures were created using respectively single or multiple UV illumination steps through masks and…
Template-free synthesis and structural evolution of discrete hydroxycancrinite zeolite nanorods from high-concentration hydrogels.
2017
We report the synthesis and characterization of hydroxycancrinite zeolite nanorods by a simple hydrothermal treatment of aluminosilicate hydrogels at high concentrations of precursors without the use of structure-directing agents. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis reveals that cancrinite nanorods, with lengths of 200-800 nm and diameters of 30-50 nm, exhibit a hexagonal morphology and are elongated along the crystallographic c direction. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and TEM studies revealed sequential events of hydrogel formation, the formation of aggregated sodalite nuclei, the conversion of sodalite to cancrinite and finally the gro…
Wavelength-Gated Adaptation of Hydrogel Properties via Photo-Dynamic Multivalency in Associative Star Polymers.
2020
Abstract Responsive materials, such as switchable hydrogels, have been largely engineered for maximum changes between two states. In contrast, adaptive systems target distinct functional plateaus between these maxima. Here, we demonstrate how the photostationary state (PSS) of an E/Z‐arylazopyrazole photoswitch can be tuned by the incident wavelength across a wide color spectrum, and how this behavior can be exploited to engineer the photo‐dynamic mechanical properties of hydrogels based on multivalent photoswitchable interactions. We show that these hydrogels adapt to the wavelength‐dependent PSS and the number of arylazopyrazole units by programmable relationships. Hence, our material des…
One-Component DNA Mechanoprobes for Facile Mechanosensing in Photopolymerized Hydrogels and Elastomers.
2021
DNA mechanosensors offer unique properties for mechano-adaptive and self-reporting materials, such as programmable bond strength and geometrical strain response, tunable fluorescent strain sensing, interfacing to biological systems, and the ability to store mechanical information. However, the facile incorporation of advanced DNA motifs into polymer networks and achieving robustness in application settings remain difficult. Herein, we introduce one-component DNA mechanoprobes that can be easily polymerized into polymer hydrogels and even elastomers to allow strain-induced fluorescence sensing. The all-in-one mechanoprobe contains a DNA hairpin for programmable force sensing, an internal flu…