Laponite® and Laponite®‐PEO hydrogels with enhanced elasticity in phosphate‐buffered saline
- Department of Chemistry Stony Brook University Stony Brook NY 11794 USA
- Department of Chemistry Stony Brook University Stony Brook NY 11794 USA, Center for Functional Nanomaterials Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton NY 11793 USA
Hydrogels of the synthetic clay Laponite® and Laponite®‐poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO) have long been studied as model systems to understand fundamental aspects of colloidal disks and colloid‐polymer systems. More recently, these systems have been explored for a variety of biomedical applications. However, there is limited information in the literature on the fundamental properties of Laponite and Laponite‐polymer gels at pH < 9. Here, we report the rheological behavior of Laponite and Laponite‐PEO systems at biologically relevant conditions (e.g. physiological pH and ionic strength) and examine the effect of phosphate‐buffered saline on the properties of the gel. Our results show that the elastic modulus of both Laponite and Laponite‐PEO gels increases dramatically, in some cases by one order of magnitude or more, after immersing gels in phosphate‐buffered saline. This may be due to an enhanced edge–face interaction between particles in buffered solutions, which would promote a long‐lasting network structure of clay particles. These results are relevant to the design of clay‐polymer gels and nanocomposites hydrogels for biomaterials applications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 1400916
- Journal Information:
- Polymers for Advanced Technologies, Journal Name: Polymers for Advanced Technologies Vol. 26 Journal Issue: 7; ISSN 1042-7147
- Publisher:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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