Swelling characteristics and biocompatibility of ionic liquid based hydrogels for biomedical applications

Polymers are commonly used in medical device manufacturing, e.g. for drug delivery systems, bone substitutes and stent coatings. Especially hydrogels exhibit very promising properties in this field. Hence, the development of new hydrogel systems for customized application is of great interest, especially regarding the swelling behavior and mechanical properties as well as the biocompatibility. The aim of this work was the preparation and investigation of various polyelectrolyte and poly-ionic liquid based hydrogels accessible by radical polymerization. The obtained polymers were covalently crosslinked with N,Nʼ-methylenebisacrylamide (MBAA) or different lengths of poly(ethyleneglycol)diacrylate (PEGDA). The effect of different crosslinker-to-monomer ratios has been examined. In addition to the compression curves and the maximum degree of swelling, the biocompatibility with L929 mouse fibroblasts of these materials was determined in direct cell seeding experiments and the outcome for the different hydrogels was compared.聚合物广泛应用于医疗器械制造领域，例如药物递送系统、骨替代材料以及支架涂层。其中，水凝胶在该领域展现出极具潜力的应用性能。因此，开发可适配定制化需求的新型水凝胶体系备受关注，尤其聚焦于其溶胀行为、力学性能与生物相容性相关研究。本研究旨在制备并探究一系列可通过自由基聚合合成的聚电解质基与聚离子液体基水凝胶：所获得的聚合物通过N,N'-亚甲基双丙烯酰胺（MBAA）或不同链长的聚乙二醇二丙烯酸酯（PEGDA）实现共价交联，并考察了不同交联剂与单体配比对材料的影响。除压缩曲线与最大溶胀度外，本研究还通过直接细胞接种实验，测定了这些材料与L929小鼠成纤维细胞的生物相容性，并对比了不同水凝胶的实验结果。