Development of potentially biocompatible hydrogels with cylindrical pores prepared from polyvinyl alcohol and low‐molecular weight polyacrylic acid

SANCHEZ, LAURA M.; ALVAREZ, VERA A.

POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Año: 2019 vol. 59 p. 1479 - 1488

0032-3888

In the present work, blend hydrogels from PVA and two different low PAA molecular weights, Mw 1800 g/mol and 5000 g/mol were prepared through the freezing-thawing (F-T) physical crosslinking method. The obtained materials were fully characterized by means of scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM) in order to analyze their morphology, gel fraction (GF) to determine the crosslinking degree and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to analyzethe PVA-PAA interactions. Thermal characterizations [thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and dynamic scanning calorimetry (DSC)] were conducted to study the relevant thermal characteristics. Sorption tests at different pH values (4 and 7) obtained from different aqueous systems were also inquired.The effects of PAA contents (between 1 and 5 wt%) and Mw of the used PAA on the hydrogel final properties were analyzed and related to the most probably PVA-PAA interactions.