Abstract
Designing hydrogels with self-assembled or self-organized structures has become an attractive field of research because these hydrogels usually have robust functions and promising applications, such as in artificial tissues and optical sensors. However, the self-organized structures developed in synthetic hydrogels via molecular self-assembly are generally limited to the sub-micrometer or micrometer level, which is far from the related scale achieved in biological tissues. Therefore, it is desirable to create macroscopically ordered structures in hydrogels; these structures should greatly improve the material’s functionalities, such as their optical properties. In this review, we generally introduce our recent studies on the synthesis of hydrogels with macroscopic-scale liquid crystal structures based on the self-assembly of a semi-rigid polyanion, poly(2,2′-disulfonyl-4,4′-benzidine terephthalamide) (PBDT). Upon electrostatic interaction with multivalent cations or polycations, PBDT molecules form semi-rigid complexes or mesoscopic bundles that further self-assemble into macroscopic organized structures and are frozen by the subsequent gelation process. We have developed physical hydrogels with centimeter-scale anisotropic structures, polycationic hydrogels with millimeter-scale cylindrically symmetric structures and plate gels with cubic-packed concentric domains. This work should contribute to the development of macroscopic self-organized structures in hydrogel materials with specific functions.
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Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research (no. 18002002) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.
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Liang Wu, Z., Kurokawa, T. & Gong, J. Hydrogels with a macroscopic-scale liquid crystal structure by self-assembly of a semi-rigid polyion complex. Polym J 44, 503–511 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2012.74
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2012.74
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