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Effect of aging on the microstructure and physical properties of Poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel

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Abstract

Physical aging is a fundamental phenomenon for any polymeric material and is essential to understand correctly, especially to foretell the long-term behavior of the material. Change in properties with time has a great influence on its applicability and usability. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), one of the most widely used polymers especially in biomedical industries, due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability nature. Moreover, PVA hydrogel is widely used in tissue engineering applications because of its high porosity and water retention capacity. The influence of aging (viz., real-time aging) on the physical properties of PVA hydrogel is poorly understood. Herein, we present an aging (viz., real-time) study of PVA hydrogel over a long period, from 3-days to 300-days. The detailed morphological analysis based on FESEM reveals a significant change in microstructure, with coarsening of pores. The rheological study shows that the material becomes more elastic with aging. After 300 days of aging the PVA hydrogel becomes thermally more stable with a shift in the transition temperature based on DSC/TGA analysis. The change in macroscopic properties is linked with the change in microscopic structure, which is governed by the extensive hydrogen bonding (both intra- and inter-molecular) between hydroxyl groups, as is evident from FTIR studies. This extensive hydrogen bonding leads to the formation of a crosslinked three-dimensional network structure, which evolves with the aging time. The 300 days aged hydrogel microstructure resembles to the porcine liver structure, indicating that it may be useful as a scaffold for tissue engineering research purposes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (No. 5(9)/2012-NANO (Vol. II)), and the Department of Science and Technology (No. SR/FST/ETII-028/2010 and EMR/2017/003610), Government of India, for funding support. We highly acknowledge the Centre for Nanotechnology, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Department of Chemical engineering and CIF, IIT Guwahati, for providing characteristics measurements and characterizations facilities.

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  1. Centre for Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781039, Assam, India

    Suvendu Mandal & Ashok Kumar Dasmahapatra

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781039, Assam, India

    Ashok Kumar Dasmahapatra

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  1. Suvendu Mandal
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Mandal, S., Dasmahapatra, A.K. Effect of aging on the microstructure and physical properties of Poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel. J Polym Res 28, 269 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-021-02624-9

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