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Photo-responsive hydrogels with enhanced volume changes due to local pH alterations

Dunne, Aishling, Hennessy, Joseph, Mac Ardle, Siobhán, Florea, Larisa orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4704-2393 and Diamond, Dermot orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-2944-4839 (2016) Photo-responsive hydrogels with enhanced volume changes due to local pH alterations. In: Analytical and Nanoanalytical Methods for Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, 29 Jun - 1 Jul 2016, Brasov, Romania.

Abstract
Photo-responsive hydrogels of varying compositions containing spiropyran photochromic units have been widely studied in recent years due to their many potential applications, including photo-actuated micro-valves for microfluidic devices [1,2]. In this study two hydrogel formulations were employed to produce reversible photo-responsive hydrogel actuators operative in neutral pH. Both compositions contain the photochromic unit spiropyran acrylate (SP) and acrylic acid (AA) copolymerised in the main polymer backbone, together with N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) or acrylamide (AAm), respectively. At neutral pH, the AA comonomer dissociates to the acrylate anion (A-) and the proton transfers to the SP unit to give the more hydrophilic protonated merocyanine (MC-H+) form, which triggers water uptake and hydrogel expansion. Under white light irradiation, the MC-H+ reverts to the more hydrophobic SP isomer, with simultaneous reformation of acrylic acid, and hydrogel contraction. In the case of p(NIPAAm-co-AA-co-SP) hydrogel, an area contraction of up to 45% of its fully hydrated size was achieved after 4 min of white light exposure followed by reswelling to up to 85% of the initial size after 11 min in the dark. In the case of p(AAm-co-AA-co-SP) hydrogel, the SP unit serves also as a reversible photo-acid generator changing the local pH which in turn determines the ratio of AA/A-, and therefore the hydrophilic character of the polymer backbone. In this case, photo-contraction of ~15% in diameter is achieved within 90 seconds of white light irradiation followed by reswelling to ~95% of its fully hydrated size after further ~30 seconds in the dark. In both cases the photo-induced contraction/reswelling processes were reversible and repeatable over at least 3 cycles with no detectable hysteresis.
Metadata
Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Event Type:Conference
Refereed:No
Uncontrolled Keywords:Hydrogels; Photo-responsive; pH-responsive; Spirobenzopyran; p(NIPAAm)
Subjects:Physical Sciences > Chemical detectors
Physical Sciences > Organic chemistry
Physical Sciences > Chemistry
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science and Health > School of Chemical Sciences
Research Initiatives and Centres > INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics
Research Initiatives and Centres > National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR)
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
Funders:Science Foundation Ireland, Insight Centre for Data Analytics
ID Code:21276
Deposited On:26 Jul 2016 10:30 by Aishling Dunne . Last Modified 14 Sep 2018 12:40
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