Effect of Different Reactive Diluents on PDMS-PEG Hydrogels Properties

Abstract

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is commonly used biomaterials for tissue engineering due to inert and nontoxic properties. However, there is the main drawback of PDMS which it is hydrophobic in nature. To overcome this limitation, PDMS was crosslinked with polyethylene glycol (PEG) in order to enhance it hydrophilic property. In this study, the effect of allyl methacrylate (AMA) and PDMS-MA 1K as reactive diluents in the hydrogel fabrication was investigated. Firstly, PDMS-SiH and PDMS-MA that was synthesized and had been confirmed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). While for UV-crosslinked hydrogel, contact angle and swelling study were conducted. From the analysis, it was found that increasing in reactive diluents content increased the swelling with insignificant trend for contact angle result. Importantly, from this work the biocompatibility of produced PDMS-based hydrogel was enhanced with the addition of reactive diluents.