Functionalization of Smart Gels with Beta-Cyclodextrin and Release Characteristics to Simulating Drugs

Abstract

Smart gels have many applications in sensors, actuators, shape memory intelligent devices, recognition, self-healing, drug release, biomimetic soft robot design, biomimetic tactile, neural regeneration, biomimetic membranes, supercapacitor, dye-sensitized solar cells, advanced lithium polymer batteries, environmental fields, biomedical fields, et al. And that cyclodextrins are one of the typical macrocycles with good recognition ability, and endowed with fascinating hydrophobic cavities and hydrophilic surface, which enable the encapsulation of diverse small organic molecules by forming inclusion complexes. In this paper, grafted copolymerization between acrylic acid and N,N-dimethyl acrylamide in the presence of water-soluble cyclodextrins was carried out. The effect of ratio of copolymerization monomer on the grafted polymer was examined. The results indicated that self-crosslinking smart gel with multi-stimuli responsive was obtained by selecting suitable the ratio of copolymerization monomer, its behaviors of swelling/shrinking were examined. The adsorption properties and releasing characteristics of smart gel were performed with simulating drugs. Some meaningful results were obtained. These series grafted copolymer would also be used to modify the surface and interface properties of low-dimensional functional materials or heterostructured nanocomposites for intelligent organic-inorganic functional nanocomposites, some good results were obtained.