Multimaterial Hydrogel with Widely Tunable Elasticity by Selective Photopolymerization of PEG Diacrylate and Epoxy Monomers

作者：Larsen E**en Kjaer Unmack; Larsen Niels B; Almdal Kristoffer; Larsen E K U; Larsen N B; Almdal K^*

来源：Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics , 2016, 54(13): 1195-1201.

DOI：10.1002/polb.24007

• biomaterials
• crosslinking
• epoxy and acrylate monomers
• functionally graded materials
• hydrogels
• multimaterial hydrogels
• photopolymerization
• tissue engineering scaffolds
• UV and visible curing

We present a method to make continuous multi-material structures from a monomer solution that becomes a soft hydrogel when exposed to blue light and a hard solid when exposed to UV light. We show that the material can be varied between a hard epoxy material to a several hundred times softer poly(ethylene glycol)-diacrylate material. Moreover, the elastic properties of the material depend on both the wavelength of and exposure time of the light, which is used to produce a material with an elasticity gradient. We expect our material to find use in a range of fields, with immediate applications as 2D sheets with tunable mechanical properties for cell durotaxis studies, and 3D stereolithographically printed tissuemimicks, for example, for disease models and tissue engineering. Spatially resolved photo-polymerization of a mixture of epoxy and acrylate monomers can be used tomake multi-material structure, with unique freedom to polymerize eachmonomer individually. The elastic compressive properties of the material are shown to be fully tunable from < 100 kPa to > 20 MPa depending on the light exposure time. This is used to make a functionally graded continuous material with a large variation in elastic properties.

• 出版日期2016-7-1