Preparation of hydrogels using aqueous two-phase Pickering emulsions
발표자
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초록
내용
Representative eco-friendly and biocompatible system is hydrogel, which can contain significant amounts of water-soluble substances and is permeable and therefore favorable for drug delivery and encapsulation. To successfully synthesize these, an oil-water emulsion has been primarily used as a template so far, but this approach has major drawbacks in that it is difficult to remove residues and requires additional coating process to impart hydrophilicity. To effectively address these issues, we here designed a new approach to fabricate hydrogels that shorten the processes and improve eco-friendliness and biocompatibility by utilizing a water-in-water emulsion composed entirely of aqueous phase as a precursor. Specifically, we focused on achieving excellent stability of the water-in-water emulsions containing low-toxic and biocompatible ingredients (e.g., PVA, Dextran, and chitosan, etc.), and converting them to hydrogels which are capable of natural degradation under certain conditions.