Dendritic Macroporous Hydrogels Prepared By Crystal Templating
AssigneeBoard of Regents, The University of Texas System
InventorsScott Zawko, Christine Schmidt
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Abstract
The present invention includes a hydrogel and a method of making a porous hydrogel by preparing an aqueous mixture of an uncrosslinked polymer and a crystallizable molecule; casting the mixture into a vessel; allowing the cast mixture to dry to form an amorphous hydrogel film; seeding the cast mixture with a seed crystal of the crystallizable molecule; growing the crystallizable molecule into a crystal structure within the uncrosslinked polymer; crosslinking the polymer around the crystal structure under conditions in which the crystal structure within the crosslinked polymer is maintained; and dissolving the crystals within the crosslinked polymer to form the porous hydrogel.
Claims5
An apparatus comprising:
- a hydrogel film having first and second opposing ends;
- chitosan included in the hydrogel film;
- urea included in the hydrogel film;
- and
- at least one crystal included in the hydrogel film;
- wherein the at least one crystal is (a) dendritically branched, (b) at least 1 micron in diameter, and (c) comprises the urea.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.