Biomaterials

Mechanically strong double network photocrosslinked hydrogels from N,N-dimethylacrylamide and glycidyl methacrylated hyaluronan

Pages 2153-2163
Lihui Weng, Andrew Gouldstone, Yuhong Wu and Weiliam Chen



Fig. 1. Illustration of the living radical feature of CLiPP system. (A) The CLiPP photopolymer system forms a crosslinked polymer network upon exposure to UV light, incorporating DTC groups as polymer chain end-caps. DTC groups remain on the polymer surface. (B) Upon subsequent exposure to UV light, DTC and carbon radicals are reformed. (C) Carbon radicals can propagate through other vinyl groups. (D) The DTC radicals then re-cap the new carbon radical. Steps (A) through (D) continue until UV light is terminated or all of the materials are consumed. This process enables facile modification of polymer surfaces with brush grafted functional materials (E), or with crosslinkable materials (F).