Leveraging the gel-to-sol transition of physically crosslinked thermoresponsive polymer hydrogels to enable reactions induced by lowering temperature.

ABSTRACT: Much work has been done on the use of heating to trigger reactions via the temperature-dependent removal of a barrier or constraint separating reagents. Far less work, however, has been done on the use of cooling to achieve a similar goal. Numerous applications, such as those involving components or materials susceptible to persistent low temperatures and cases in which energy for heating is not available, would benefit from this inverse approach. Hence, in this study we explore whether physically crosslinked hydrogels can be reliably used as thermoresponsive constraints that allow reagents to react only upon cooling. We achieve this by loading reagents into adjacent blocks of thermoresponsive hydrogel and showing that these reagents can only react with each other after the temperat

SUBMITTER: Lobban R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9361303 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature