ISSN:
1662-0356
Source:
Scientific.Net: Materials Science & Technology / Trans Tech Publications Archiv 1984-2008
Topics:
Natural Sciences in General
,
Technology
Notes:
To control the microstructure and the responsive rates of hydrogels, a temperature-inducedphase separation (TIPS) method applied to an organic-inorganic hybrid hydrogel. A copolymerbetween thermosensitive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), polyNIPA, and a vinyl monomer possessinga trimethoxysilyl group was synthesized by radical reaction. Its cross-linking could be carried out byhydrolytic polycondensation of trimethoxysilyl groups. During both reactions, the pre-gel solutionwas separated into two phases by heating above a lower critical solution temperature of theelongating polyNIPA copolymer. The responsive rates of the microporous gel could be controlled bycharacteristic diffusion path length as the thickness of micropore wall, instead of the macroscopicsample size. Therefore, the shrinking rates of the hydrogel could be successfully maximized by fixingthe phase-separated, microporous polymer network. Besides the interconnectivity of generated pores,the thermally triggered shrinking kinetics was investigated
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://www.tib-hannover.de/fulltexts/2011/0528/01/42/transtech_doi~10.4028%252Fwww.scientific.net%252FAST.54.109.pdf
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