open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/87459

In Situ Evaluation of the Polymer Concentration Distribution of Microphase-Separated Polyelectrolyte Hydrogels by the Microelectrode Technique

英語

2021-12-14

American Chemical Society

Macromolecules

54(23)

10776-10785

The heterogeneous structure that exists in virtually all hydrogels has a significant influence on the resulting strength and toughness. While the internal structure has been observed with electron microscopy, it is difficult to measure the in situ local polymer concentration in the native swollen state. In this study, a modified microelectrode technique (MET) was employed to measure the Donnan potential of a heterogeneous hydrogel with a phase-separated structure. With this method, we succeeded in observing quantitative in situ polymer concentrations ranging from 10.2 mu mol/L to several hundred mmol/L. From the obtained concentration profiles, we could successfully evaluate the internal phase-separated structure with a resolution of less than 0.8 mu m. Using MET, we could estimate the average activity coefficient of the hydrogel, and we found a difference in concentration between the dense and sparse phases. We demonstrate that MET is a powerful method that can locally and quantitatively measure the polyelectrolyte concentration distribution within hydrogels. Furthermore, this method can be applied to cells and organs in vivo due to their similarities with polyelectrolytes. Enabling the in situ determination of the internal structures of biomaterials could have important implications toward the characterization of damaged and diseased tissues on the local scale.

学術雑誌論文

Accepted Manuscript

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Macromolecules, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequest/AOR-6DHYF5TY4UZWT5BIBV32 .

0024-9297