The use of combinatorial chemistry in the development of temperature sensitive hydrogels

In the present work, a combinatorial chemistry approach to synthesize a diversity of temperature responsive hydrogels has been developed. Different acrylamide and acrylic acid derivatives have been used as monomers and bisacrylamide derivatives as crosslinkers. The crosslinking reactions have been carried out with the addition of ammonium peroxydisulfate (AP) as the initiator and N,N,N,N'-tetramethylethylenediamine (TEMED) as the accelerator. The type of monomers and crosslinkers and their concentration have been established-as diversity factors. The resultant hydrogels have been characterized in terms of rheology properties by an oscillatory and rotatory experiments and LCST determination by a spectrophotometric method and DSC. The aforementioned combinatorial approach has allowed us to study a wide range of temperature sensitive hydrogels on an easier and relatively faster way than traditional approaches. Furthermore, the complete development of a library of temperature responsive hydrogels should allow us to have a set of gels for a wide range of possible applications.