Abstract
Poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels (PVA-Hs) are promising materials for various biomedical applications and have been studied extensively. Low-temperature crystallization is the most popular method used to prepare PVA-Hs with excellent mechanical properties. However, this method uses dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent, which is toxic and difficult to handle. In this study, a novel hot-pressing method was developed for preparing transparent PVA-Hs in order to eliminate the need of DMSO for solubilizing PVA during gelation. Unlike the conventional methods, this method used high initial concentrations of PVA, which made the molding of the gels easy and enhanced their gelation. The hydrogels prepared by hot-pressing showed rapid gelation of the PVA molecules along with an enhanced crystallinity, unlike the hydrogels prepared by freezing and thawing. The efficiency of different solvents (water and DMSO/water mixtures) for the preparation of PVA-Hs by the hot-pressing method was tested. The total amount of crystallites was the same for all the gels irrespective of the solvent used. However, the gels solubilized in only water showed a decrease in the net crystal size. This method not only eliminates the use of DMSO in preparing PVA-Hs but also produces gels with high mechanical properties for future use.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Japan VAM & POVAL for kindly donating PVA. This work was partly supported by Nanotechnology Platform Program (Nagoya University, Molecule and Material Synthesis) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan.
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Sakaguchi, T., Nagano, S., Hara, M. et al. Facile preparation of transparent poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels with uniform microcrystalline structure by hot-pressing without using organic solvents. Polym J 49, 535–542 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2017.18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2017.18
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