Modelling of swelling of PVA hydrogels considering non-ideal mixing behaviour of PVA and water.

DAZA AGUDELO; RAMIREZ MR; HENQUIN EDUARDO; RINTOUL IGNACIO

Journal of Materials Chemistry B

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Lugar: London; Año: 2019

2050 7518

Modelling of swelling of PVA hydrogels considering non-ideal mixing behaviour of PVA and water.Manuscript ID: TB-ART-02-2019-000243.R1Journal of Materials Chemistry BPoly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel microbeads are widely used as embolization agents in the treatment of cancer in filtering organs. The success of embolization procedures depends strongly on the swelling properties of the PVA hydrogels. PVA hydrogels can be understood as a non-ideal mixtures of PVA and water. Here, the sum of PVA and water volumes is different to the volume of their resulting mixture. The correlation between volumetric and mass swelling of PVA and water is highly relevant to several technological issues. In the present contribution, the water up take (WUT), the most important characteristics of PVA hydrogel microbeads intended for use as embolic agents, was investigated considering the PVA hydrogel as a non-ideal mixture of PVA and water. PVA hHydrogel microbeads were obtained by chemical crosslinking of PVA with glutaraldehyde (GA) in emulsion. The structure of resulting PVA microbeads was investigated using FT-IR and SEM. The volumetric and mass swelling behavioursbehaviors of the PVA hydrogel microbeads in water were followed by optical microscopy and gravimetric studies, respectively. Additionally, a WUT model for hydrogels were the polymer and water behave as non-ideal mixtures is presented.