Abstract
Chemistry, geometric shape and swelling behavior are the key parameters that determine any successful use of man-made polymeric networks (gels). While understanding of the swelling behavior of both water-swellable hydrogels and organogels that swell in organic solvents can be considered well-advanced with respect to fossil fuel-based polymer networks, the understanding, in particular, of wood-derived polymers in such a network architecture is still lacking. In this work, we focus on organogels derived from hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) ester. The latter polymer was functionalized with saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, respectively. Due to their tailored chemical constitution, we demonstrated that such polysaccharide can be crosslinked and simultaneously surface-bound by using a photo-induced radical reaction using a photo-initiator. Based on the choice of fatty acid used in the design of the HPC ester, and by controlling the degree of substitution (DS) obtained during the esterification of the polysaccharide, modular manipulation of the physical properties (e.g., polarity) of the resulting gel is possible. Depending on the initiator employed, different wavelengths of light, from UV to visible, can be utilized for the crosslinking reaction, which facilitates the deployment of a range of light sources and different lithographic methods. Additionally, we showed that altering of the illumination time allows to tailor the netpoint density, and thus, the degree of linear deformation in equilibrium and the swelling kinetics. Finally, we performed a proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate the application of our material for the generation of spatially resolved polymer patches to enrich organic molecules from a solution within a microfluidic channel.
Highlights
Swellable polymer networks have been extensively studied in recent decades, with subsequent development for use in a wide range of applications (Osada and Gong, 1998)
In addition to hydrogels, which gained considerable attention during the last decades, because of their great potential in medicinal applications [e.g., tissue engineering (Annabi et al, 2014), drug delivery, and point-of-care diagnostics] (Rivest et al, 2007; van Tomme et al, 2008; Jagur-Grodzinski, 2009), organogels, which swell in organic solvents (Suzuki and Hanabusa, 2010), are highly interesting and offer promising perspectives in areas such as drug delivery
We report a different approach for the photo-induced chemical crosslinking of hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) as films on solid model-surfaces using radical initiators
Summary
Swellable polymer networks have been extensively studied in recent decades, with subsequent development for use in a wide range of applications (Osada and Gong, 1998). To use HPC as a base material for functional polymer gels, different approaches have been described in the literature. We report a different approach for the photo-induced chemical crosslinking of HPC as films on solid model-surfaces using radical initiators.
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