Preparation and Characterization of Injectable Hybrid Hydrogels Based on Photopolymerziaton

In this study, bentonite/polyacrylamide hybrid hydrogels were prepared via free radical polymerization of acrylamide (AM) with photocurable poly (ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) as cross-linkers under UV irradiation. The structure of the hydrogels was characterized by FTIR, DTA techniques. Both single factor and orthogonal design experiments were adopted to investigate the swelling kinetics of the hydrogels. The effect of AM, PEGDMA, bentonite, photoinitiator on the swelling ratios was studied in detail. The as-prepared hydrogels could find a lot of applications in biomaterials.