Journal
MACROMOLECULES
Volume 45, Issue 20, Pages 8387-8400Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/ma301315q
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Funding
- ARC [DP1093848]
- Australian Research Council [DP1093848] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
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The photodegradation kinetics of reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) synthesized hydrogels were investigated and compared to conventional free radical gels, using rheological monitoring. The gel polymerizations were conducted on N-acryloylmorpholine (NAM) between parallel plates of a rheometer, in aqueous media and at ambient temperature using the redox couple ammonium persulfate (APS) and N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethane-1,2-diamine (TEMED). The gels synthesized by RAFT are believed to have a more homogeneous network structure which is thought to be a contributing factor to the faster degradation kinetics displayed by the RAFT gels compared to conventional non-RAFT gels. Difunctional macro-RAFT agents were used to prepare the gels which insert degradable points in backbone chains, as well as the cross-links, to give significantly faster degradation rates. RAFT also provided a platform to carry out a systematic study of the photodegradable gels and demonstrated a limitation of the system, which is the unavoidable attenuation of light intensity by the light active components of the gel. This means that the concentration of photodegradable cross-linker, a parameter which is varied in order to modulate the final storage modulus G' of the gel, will also have a consequence on the degradation kinetics.
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