Electrophoretic hydrogel adhesion for fabrication of three-dimensional materials

Abstract

The adhesion of hydrogels has attracted substantial attention for use in building three-dimensional constructs such as scaffolds for cell culture, carriers of drug release system and soft actuators. This review article summarizes our group’s research on electrophoretic hydrogel adhesion, a novel strategy for the adhesion of hydrogels. This technique involves the electrophoretic manipulation of a polyelectrolyte to form an adhesive layer at the interface of the two hydrogels and is a powerful method for fabrication of free-form hydrogel constructs through the adhesion of microgels. The adhesion of hydrogels has attracted attention for use in building three-dimensional (3D) constructs, such as scaffolds for cell culture, carriers of drug release system and soft actuators. Electrophoretic hydrogel adhesion, which is the electrophoretic manipulation of a polyelectrolyte to form an adhesive layer at the interface of two gels, was developed. To apply this adhesive method to build 3D materials, rapid and free-form fabrication of hydrogel constructs was achieved by the electrophoretic adhesion of microgels. The development of a novel adhesion strategy will be useful for the fabrication of novel 3D hydrogel architectures.