MONITORING OF POLYETHYLENE GLYCOLDIACRYLATE - BASED HYDROGEL FORMATION BY REAL TIME NMR SPECTROSCOPY

ABSTRACT Key Words: Monitoring of Polyethylene Glycol-diacrylate-based Hydrogel Formation byReal Time NMR Spectroscopy Mohammad Imani *1 , Shahriar Sharifi 2 , Hamid Mirzadeh 1,2 , and Farshid Ziaee 1 (1) Department of Novel Drug Delivery Systems, Iran Polymer and PetrochemicalInstitute, P.O. Box: 14965/115, Tehran, Iran(2) Biomedical Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, P.O. Box: 15875/4413, Tehran, IranReceived 8 April 2006; accepted 23 January 2007 H ydrogels produced by in situ polymerization have been extensively studied asbiomaterials in applications such as scaffolds for tissue engineering and drugdelivery systems. In situ polymerization process allows the hydrogel to be gen-erated in vitro or in vivo from a low viscosity solution of monomer or low molecularweight polymer by free radical pathway. In this study, polyethylene glycol-diacrylate(PEG-DA) macromer has been synthesized by esterification of PEG with acryloyl chlo-ride and characterized by NMR and FTIR spectroscopies and swelling study. Cross-linking was initiated by a pair of redox initiator, i.e. ammonium persulphate and