Engineering Commons^™

Structure Of Nearly Ideal And Multi-Component Polymeric Biomaterials, Erika Saffer

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrogels have long been considered ideal candidates for biomaterial and tissue engineering applications due to their many desirable properties, such as high water content and tunable gelation conditions. Although these materials have undergone extensive research and development, some mechanical and physical properties are still difficult to achieve. The reason for this is often related to the structure of the hydrogel network. Understanding how network structures are influenced by changes in formulation parameters (i.e. polymer molecular weight, initial polymer concentration, ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic polymer), and correlating these results to known mechanical and physical properties would yield well characterized systems …