Using hydrophilic polysaccharide to modify supramolecular hydrogel from a low-molecular-mass gelator

作者：Song Fei; Zhang Li Ming^*; Shi Jun Feng; Li Nan Nan; Yang Chuan; Yan Li

来源：Materials Science and Engineering C-Biomimetic and Supramolecular Systems, 2010, 30(6): 804-811.

DOI：10.1016/j.msec.2010.03.018

• Hydrogelator
• Polysaccharide
• Modification
• Rheological propery
• Fractal analysis

Small molecular hydrogels hold important potential applications in bioengineering and biomedicine. However, they suffer usually from weak mechanical and water-retention properties. In this work, hydrophilic dextran polysaccharide was used for the first time to modify the properties of the supramolecular hydrogel derived from a low-molecular-mass gelator, 2, 6-di[N-(carboxyethyl carbonyl) amino]pyridine (DAP). When the DAP hydrogel was formed in aqueous dextran solution with a rather low viscosity, we found that it could be significantly reinforced with respect to its viscoelastic moduli, complex viscosity and hydrogel strength. Moreover, the modified DAP hydrogel has a higher bound water content. These property changes could be attributed to the formation of intermolecular hydrogen bonds between DAP and dextran. By relating the dynamic theological data with a scaling model, it was found that native and modified DAP hydrogels had both a fractal aggregate structure and the incorporation of dextran resulted in an increase of the fractal dimension. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that a more complex network structure was formed in the DAP hydrogel with dextran.