Synthesis and properties of degradable poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel

摘要

A novel degradable hydrogel has been prepared by condensing poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with ELDA, a diacid derived from lactic acid. The structure of the ELDA crosslinking agent and the crosslinked PVA-ELDA polymer has been characterized with FTIR. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of PVA-ELDA, determined by DSC, is found to increase with the crosslink ratio (CR). The character of water in PVA-ELDA was also examined with DSC, which shows that the water in the hydrogel can be classified as bound and free water. The percentage of bound water in the hydrogel of CR 0.0151, 0.0101 and 0.0050 is 87.7, 74.5 and 76.4% respectively. The maximum equilibrium water content of the PVA-ELDA hydrogel is 123%. After 3-day's immersion in phosphate-buffer saline (PBS) (0.1 M, pH 7.4) at 37 degreesC, the maximum weight loss of PVA-ELDA is about 12.5%, which indicates it is degradable. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. [References: 26]