Design and Fabrication of a High-Strength Hydrogel with Ideally Homogeneous Network Structure from Tetrahedron-like Macromonomers

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• 作者：Takamasa Sakai ; Takuro Matsunaga ; Yuji Yamamoto ; Chika Ito ; Ryo Yoshida ; Shigeki Suzuki ; Nobuo Sasaki ; Mitsuhiro Shibayama ; Ung-il Chung
• 刊名：Macromolecules
• 出版年：2008
• 出版时间：July 22, 2008
• 年：2008
• 卷：41
• 期：14
• 页码：5379 - 5384
• 全文大小：530K
• 年卷期：v.41,no.14(July 22, 2008)
• ISSN：1520-5835

文摘

As a new class of high-strength hydrogels, we designed a tetra-PEG gel by combining two symmetrical tetrahedron-like macromonomers of the same size. Because the nanostructural unit of the gel network was defined by the length of the tetrahedral PEG arm, the gel had a homogeneous structure and resultant high mechanical strength comparable to that of native articular cartilage. Furthermore, since the gel was formed by mixing two biocompatible macromonomer solutions, the gelation reaction itself and the resultant gel were also biocompatible. The breaking strength had local maxima at the overlap concentration of the macromonomers (C*) and at 2C*. Dynamic light scattering measurement indicated the near absence of inhomogeneities in the network at C*. Thus, we successfully designed and fabricated a high-strength hydrogel by controlling the homogeneity of network structure for the first time, which will lead to multiplied effects, i.e., contributing to the understanding of ideal networks, providing a universal strategy for designing high-strength gels, and opening up the biomedical application of hydrogels.