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Thermal-responsive poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)/sodium alginate hydrogels: preparation, swelling behaviors, and mechanical properties

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Abstract

Temperature-responsive hydrogels with enhanced mechanical properties are desirable in areas such as intelligent device. In this contribution, a poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)/sodium alginate (PNIPAM/Ca-alginate) hydrogel was prepared by a two-step strategy, obtaining a hydrogel with two kinds of cross-linking: chemical cross-linking and ionic cross-linking. The hydrogels exhibited improved mechanical properties compared with that of the PNIPAM/Na-alginate hydrogel and the compressive strength of PNIPAM/Ca-alginate hydrogels depended significantly on the cross-linking density. In particular, PNIPAM/Ca-alginate hydrogels with the cross-linking agent content of 0.036 g displayed the optimal compressive strength of 308.9 kPa among the hydrogel samples with varied amounts of cross-linking agents. The swelling tests at varying temperatures indicated that PNIPAM/Ca-alginate hydrogels exhibited negative temperature-sensitive swelling behaviors and the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was determined to be in the temperature range of 30∼34 °C. The swelling kinetics study revealed that the mechanism of water uptake of the PNIPAM/Ca-alginate hydrogels followed a less-Fickian mode, while the entire swelling behaviors of hydrogels followed the pseudo-second-order dynamic equation.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial support from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51473007, 21104040), State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication of Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics (No. LSL-1501), and Innovative Research Team of Polymeric Functional Film of Beijing Technology and Business University (19008001071).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Material and Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Huijuan Zhang, Yanan Zhang, Lifen He, Biao Yang & Shujie Zhu

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China

    Meihuan Yao

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  1. Huijuan Zhang
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  2. Yanan Zhang
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  3. Lifen He
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  4. Biao Yang
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Correspondence to Huijuan Zhang.

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Zhang, H., Zhang, Y., He, L. et al. Thermal-responsive poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)/sodium alginate hydrogels: preparation, swelling behaviors, and mechanical properties. Colloid Polym Sci 294, 1959–1967 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-016-3951-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-016-3951-2

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