The Effect of Crosslinking Degree of Hydrogels on Hydrogel Adhesion
Zhangkang Li,
Cheng Yu,
Hitendra Kumar,
Xiao He,
Qingye Lu,
Huiyu Bai,
Keekyoung Kim,
Jinguang Hu
Affiliations
Zhangkang Li
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Cheng Yu
Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Hitendra Kumar
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Xiao He
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Qingye Lu
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Huiyu Bai
Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Keekyoung Kim
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Jinguang Hu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
The development of adhesive hydrogel materials has brought numerous advances to biomedical engineering. Hydrogel adhesion has drawn much attention in research and applications. In this paper, the study of hydrogel adhesion is no longer limited to the surface of hydrogels. Here, the effect of the internal crosslinking degree of hydrogels prepared by different methods on hydrogel adhesion was explored to find the generality. The results show that with the increase in crosslinking degree, the hydrogel adhesion decreased significantly due to the limitation of segment mobility. Moreover, two simple strategies to improve hydrogel adhesion generated by hydrogen bonding were proposed. One was to keep the functional groups used for hydrogel adhesion and the other was to enhance the flexibility of polymer chains that make up hydrogels. We hope this study can provide another approach for improving the hydrogel adhesion generated by hydrogen bonding.
