Chitosan-graft-Polyaniline-Based Hydrogels: Elaboration and Properties

Elastic, conductive, polymeric hydrogels and sponges

As a result of inherent rigidity of the conjugated macromolecular chains resulted from the delocalized π-electron system along the polymer backbone, it has been a huge challenge to make conducting polymer hydrogels elastic by far. Herein elastic and conductive polypyrrole hydrogels with only conducting polymer as the continuous phase have been simply synthesized in the indispensable conditions of 1) mixed solvent, 2) deficient oxidant, and 3) monthly secondary growth. The elastic mechanism and oxidative polymerization mechanism on the resulting PPy hydrogels have been discussed. The resulting hydrogels show some novel properties, e.g., shape memory elasticity, fast functionalization with various guest objects, and fast removal of organic infectants from aqueous solutions, all of which cannot be observed from traditional non-elastic conducting polymer counterparts. What's more, light-weight, elastic, and conductive organic sponges with excellent stress-sensing behavior have been successfully achieved via using the resulting polypyrrole hydrogels as precursors.

Biologically derived soft conducting hydrogels using heparin-doped polymer networks

The emergence of flexible and stretchable electronic components expands the range of applications of electronic devices. Flexible devices are ideally suited for electronic biointerfaces because of mechanically permissive structures that conform to curvilinear structures found in native tissue. Most electronic materials used in these applications exhibit elastic moduli on the order of 0.1-1 MPa. However, many electronically excitable tissues exhibit elasticities in the range of 1-10 kPa, several orders of magnitude smaller than existing components used in flexible devices. This work describes the use of biologically derived heparins as scaffold materials for fabricating networks with hybrid electronic/ionic conductivity and ultracompliant mechanical properties. Photo-cross-linkable heparin-methacrylate hydrogels serve as templates to control the microstructure and doping of in situ polymerized polyaniline structures. Macroscopic heparin-doped polyaniline hydrogel dual networks exhibit impedances as low as Z = 4.17 Ω at 1 kHz and storage moduli of G' = 900 ± 100 Pa. The conductivity of heparin/polyaniline networks depends on the oxidation state and microstructure of secondary polyaniline networks. Furthermore, heparin/polyaniline networks support the attachment, proliferation, and differentiation of murine myoblasts without any surface treatments. Taken together, these results suggest that heparin/polyaniline hydrogel networks exhibit suitable physical properties as an electronically active biointerface material that can match the mechanical properties of soft tissues composed of excitable cells.

Conducting hydrogels of tetraaniline-g-poly(vinyl alcohol) in situ reinforced by supramolecular nanofibers

Novel conducting hydrogels (PVA-TA) with dual network structures were synthesized by the grafting reaction of tetraaniline (TA) into the main chains of poly(vinyl alcohol) and in situ reinforced by self-assembly of a sorbitol derivative as the gelator. The chemical structure of the PVA-TA hydrogels was characterized by using FT-IR and NMR. The mechanical strength of the PVA-TA hydrogels was strongly improved due to the presence of supramolecular nanofibers. For instance, the compressive and tensile strengths of supramolecular nanofiber-reinforced hydrogels were, respectively, 10 times and 5 times higher than those of PVA-TA hydrogels. Their storage modulus (G') and loss modulus (G″) were 5 times and 21 times higher than those of PVA-TA hydrogels, respectively. Cyclic voltammetry and conductivity measurements indicated that the electroactivity of reinforced hydrogels is not influenced by the presence of supramolecular nanofibers.

Synthesis of Chemical Responsive Chitosan–Grafted-Polyaniline Bio-Composite

A polysaccharide based bioplolymer, chitosan was grafted with polyaniline through a simple room temperature oxidative-radical copolymerization method employing CuSO4 as a polymerizing agent. The grafting conditions were optimized by varying different parameters. The optimized experimental findings have been discussed and proposed a probable mechanism for the graft copolymerization. The representative sample of chitosan-graft-polyaniline (CHIT-g-PANI) was characterized using UV-vis, FTIR, X-ray diffraction and Scanning electron microscopy techniques taking chitosan as reference material. The result revealed the formation of grafted composite. Which exhibited highly improved electrical conductivity , in the order of ~ 10 -6 times due to the grafting of PANI onto chitosan backbone. Further , composite was found responsive in nature for H+ ion , which will be a suitable properties for its use in fabrication of bio-sensor.

Multilayer self-assembly of TiO₂ nanoparticles and polyaniline-grafted-chitosan copolymer (CPANI) for photocatalysis

A photocatalytic thin film of TiO₂ nanoparticles and polyaniline-grafted-chitosan (CPANI) was fabricated by layer-by-layer (LbL) approach. The growth of the self-assembly of polymer nanocomposite was monitored by UV-vis spectroscopy and the thin film morphology was analyzed from scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS) was used as a bridging layer between TiO₂ nanoparticles and CPANI. Incorporation of CPANI within the LbL self-assembly of polymer nanocomposites enhanced the dye degradation ability of the thin film. These results indicate that the presence of CPANI improves the adsorption of dye in the self-assembly. The effect of surface area and the amount of catalyst was also examined. The reusability of the thin films for dye degradation study ensures the stability of the self-assembly.