what is a hydrogel?
2018-11-23
what is a hydrogel?
Hydrogel is a gel in which water is the dispersion medium.
A water-soluble polymer having a network cross-linking structure introduces a part of a hydrophobic group and a hydrophilic residue, and the hydrophilic residue is combined with a water molecule to connect the water molecule in the interior of the network, and the hydrophobic residue is in contact with water. Copolymer. It is a polymer network system that is soft in nature, can maintain a certain shape, and can absorb a large amount of water.
Recently, researchers from Tsinghua University have developed a series of highly stretchable and UV-curable hydrogels that can be stretched to 1300% for UV-based 3D printing.
With the recent rapid development of 3D printing, various attempts have been made to use 3D printing to fabricate hydrogel structures having complex geometries. However, existing 3D printed hydrogels do not have high print resolution, high geometric complexity, and high stretchability, making them unsuitable for many applications.