Nanoparticle hydrogels
AssigneeKhalifa University of Science and Technology
InventorsTieJun Zhang, Afra Saeed Alketbi, Aikifa Raza
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Abstract
A method of printing a hydrogel-based device includes contacting a monomer, a crosslinker, a photoinitiator, and a precursor salt with a solvent to form an ink solution, printing the ink solution onto a substrate, exposing the ink solution to light, sufficient to form a hydrogel, and contacting the hydrogel with a reducing agent sufficient to precipitate nanoparticles from the precursor salt in the hydrogel.
Claims19
A method of printing a hydrogel-based device, the method comprising:
- contacting a monomer, a crosslinker, a photoinitiator, and a precursor iron-containing salt with a solvent to form an ink solution;
- printing the ink solution onto a substrate;
- exposing the ink solution to light, sufficient to form a light-cured hydrogel;
- and
- alkalinizing by contacting the light-cured hydrogel with a base reducing agent sufficient to coprecipitate Fe3+ and Fe2+ in alkaline conditions to form nanoparticles including Fe3O4, wherein the Fe3+ and Fe2+ are provided at least in part by the precursor iron-containing salt.
A method of printing a hydrogel-based device, the method comprising:
- contacting a first monomer, a first crosslinker, and a first photoinitiator with a first solvent to form a first ink solution;
- printing the first ink solution onto a substrate;
- exposing the first ink solution to light, sufficient to form a base hydrogel layer;
- contacting a second monomer, a second crosslinker, a second photoinitiator, and a precursor salt with a second solvent to form a second ink solution;
- printing the second ink solution onto the base hydrogel layer;
- exposing the second ink solution to light, sufficient to form one or more additional hydrogel layers;
- and
- swelling at least one of the one or more additional hydrogel layers in a liquid base reducing agent sufficient for alkalinization to precipitate nanoparticles from the precursor salt in the one or more additional hydrogel layers.
A method of preparing a hydrogel-based structure, comprising:
- printing a photocurable composition onto a substrate, wherein the photocurable composition includes a monomer, a crosslinker, a photoinitiator, a metal-containing precursor salt, and a solvent;
- exposing the photocurable composition to actinic radiation sufficient to form an at least partially crosslinked hydrogel;
- and
- swelling the at least partially crosslinked hydrogel in a liquid base reducing agent sufficient for alkalinization to form a composite structure including a plurality of metal oxide nanoparticles, wherein the metal oxide nanoparticles are formed from the metal-containing precursor salt.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.