TOUGH ORGANOHYDROGEL

Abstract

With the ageing of the global population, it is of paramount importance that the society is well prepared for it. A prominent issue faced by the elderly is the wear and tear of tissues. Hydrogels, having high water content, bear high resemblance to extracellular matrices and would be suitable as tissue substitutes. However, they have weak mechanical properties and are susceptible to the changes upon variation in environmental temperatures. This study will focus on eliminating the latter weakness through the introduction of a second organogel network. The successful synthesis of the organohydrogels was confirmed by FTIR. The organohydrogels were shown to have improved thermal stability compared to their constituents, and maintained their flexibility even at approximately -80 ˚C. In addition, the Young’s modulus of the organohydrogels was also found to fall within the range of the native tissues, suggesting that they can be further explored as the tissue substitutes.