Poly polymer hydrogels

In summary, the steady state and transient performance of the poly(acrylamide) hydrogel with immobilized glucose oxidase and phenol red dye (pAAm/GO/PR) demonstrates phenomena common to all polymer-based sensors and drag delivery systems. The role of the polymer in these systems is to act as a barrier to control the transport of substrates/products and this in turn controls the ultimate signal and the response time. For systems which rely upon the reaction of a substrate for example via an immobilized enzyme, the polymer controls the relative importance of the rate of substrate/analyte delivery and the rate of the reaction. In membrane systems, the thicker the polymer membrane the longer the response time due to substrate diffusion limitations as demonstrated with our pAAm/GO/PR system. However a membrane must not be so thin as to allow convective removal of the substrates before undergoing reaction, or removal of the products before detection. The steady state as well as the transient response of the pAAm/GO/ PR system was used to demonstrate these considerations with the more complicated case in which two substrates are required for the reaction. 

In addition to batch functionahzation, the shot-grow process was also performed to prepare amino-containing thermally sensitive poly(NIPAM) hydrogel and core-shell (polystyrene core and poly(NIPAM) shell) particles. The results revealed a good functionahzation yield with a non-neghgible amount of water-soluble polymer formation. 

Yu L, Urban G, Moser I, Jobst G, Gmber H (1995) Photolithographically pattemable modified poly(HEMA) hydrogel membrane. Polymer Bull 35(6) 759-765... 

YNTHETIC HYDROGEL POLYMERS, first introduced in the early 1960s, made a major impact, initially in the soft contact lens field, and more recently in other biomedical or specialty applications. The first synthetic poly(2-hy-droxyethyl methacrylate) [poly(HEMA)] hydrogel developed by Wichterle (i) remains very important, as do its copolymers with monomers such as N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidinone, acrylic and methacrylic acids, glycerol methacrylate, various acrylamides, and alkoxyalkyl methacrylates. 

By polymerizing poly(A -isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) [55] or poly (2-(diethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDEAEMA) [56] as a stimuli responsive polymer/hydrogel layer around a colored nanoparticle of PS-co-PMMA, the local refractive index and consequently the color intensity of the latex could be switched by the temperature [55] or pH [56]. 

Keys, K., Andreopoulos, F.M., Peppas, N.A. Poly(ethylene glycol) star polymer hydrogels. Macromolecules 31, 8149-8156 (1998)... 

Huang, Y, Yu, H., and Xiao, C. pH-sensitive cationic guar gum/poly (acrylic acid) poly electrolyte hydrogels Swelling and in vitro drug release. Carbohydr. Polym., 69, 774-783 (2007). 

Soft contact lenses (SCLs) are one of the major products constructed from poly(HEMA) hydrogels. Since their introduction, a variety of such poly-(HEMA)-based hydrogels have been developed to improve lens properties. Both excellent protein adsorption resistance and wettability are required for SCLs, making MFC a good candidate as a suitable monomer. Biocompatible Co. has produced MFC polymer-based SCLs that contain 20% MFC, 80% HEMA, and a small amount of crosslinker (Froclear , omafilcon A), with such lenses now commercially available from CooperVision Co. The Froclear is the only contact lens for reduction of dry-eye syndrome that has been approved by the FDA in the USA. 

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