Physico-chemical characterisation of hydrogels from chemistry to function
Wu, BingORCID: 0000-0002-2739-5124
(2016)
Physico-chemical characterisation of hydrogels from chemistry to function.
PhD thesis, Dublin City University.
Hydrogels in industrial applications have received increased attention due to potential in drug eluting contact lenses and in the pharmaceutical field because of the anticipated biocompatibility of this class of materials. As one of most common commercial hydrogels, Polyethylene glycol (PEG)-based polyacrylate gels are widely used in tissue engineering and coating applications. In many cases photopolymerization is the preferred route to preparing these crosslinked networks. Hence, a thorough understanding of these photo-cured PEG-based polyacrylate network is of great interest in the further understanding of industrial applications
of these materials.
In this work, we probed the detailed polymer dynamics inside these photo-cured networks by using a series of analytical tools, like Nuclear Magnetic Resonances (NMR) techniques, while these bulky characters (mechanic properties, thermal properties, etc.) were also measured
correspondingly. By correlating these data, several effects caused by microscopic attributes (e.g. topological properties of the network, hydrogen bonding induced clustering, etc.) of these hydrogels on their macroscopic properties (elasticity, O2 permeability, etc.) will be discussed in this thesis.
The goal of this thesis, is to better understand the connection between structural/dynamic properties of hydrogel materials and their mechanic/thermal behavior, which could be used to further design the new generation of hydrogel materials.
Item Type:
Thesis (PhD)
Date of Award:
November 2016
Refereed:
No
Supervisor(s):
Nolan, Kieran and Brougham, Dermot and Heise, Andreas