Hydrogels with well-controlled structures have gained great interest due to the improved physical/mechanical properties, and the cutting edge applications in numerous biomedical fields ranging from drug delivery to tissue engineering scaffolds.  Novel thiol-ene click reaction offers the possibility of creating hydrogel with defined structure under extremely mild conditions.  Furthermore, Nano fibrillate cellulose (NFC) was chosen as the promising reinforcement for hydrogels due to the ordered structure and strength.The aim of this work was to synthesize a library of dendritic hydrogels based on 2,2-bis-(methylol)propionic acid (bis-MPA) dendrimers and dithiol poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) , together with the NFC reinforcement,  via thiol-ene reaction (see the schematic image in Figure 1). Hydrogel properties such as Mc, mechanical strength, swelling and degradation were investigated, as a function of change in the molecular size of the bis-MPA dendrimers, the linear chain length of dithiol PEG, and the NFC weight ratio.

Cellulose reinforced hydrogel via click chemistry

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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