One-Shot Preparation of Polyacrylamide/Poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) Double-Network Hydrogels for Rapid Optical Tissue Clearing

Takayuki Koda; Shunsuke Dohi; Hedeki Tachi; Yasuhito Suzuki; Chie Kojima; Akikazu Matsumoto

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b02493

One-Shot Preparation of Polyacrylamide/Poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) Double-Network Hydrogels for Rapid Optical Tissue Clearing

ACS Omega. 2019 Dec 3;4(25):21083-21090. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b02493. eCollection 2019 Dec 17.

Authors

Takayuki Koda¹, Shunsuke Dohi¹, Hedeki Tachi², Yasuhito Suzuki¹, Chie Kojima¹, Akikazu Matsumoto¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan.
² Research Division of Polymer Functional Materials, Izumi Center, Osaka Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, 2-7-1 Ayumino, Izumi, Osaka 594-1157, Japan.

Abstract

In this study, we propose a convenient method for the synthesis of double-network gels by the one-shot radical polymerization for their application to rapid optical tissue clearing. Double-network gels were produced during the radical polymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and sodium styrenesulfonate (SS) in the presence of N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide and sodium divinylbenzenesulfonate as the cross-linkers by simultaneous addition, that is, one-shot polymerization accompanying the delay of polymerization for a second network monomer. We analyzed the polymerization process based on the consumption rates of each monomer during the reactions in the absence of the cross-linkers in order to estimate the repeating unit structure of the resulting polymers. We then fabricated the AAm/SS gels by the polymerization of AAm and SS in the presence of the cross-linkers. We analyzed the swelling, viscoelastic, and mechanical properties of the produced gels to investigate their network structure. Finally, we demonstrated the validity of the double-network gels for the application to rapid optical tissue clearing.