Sharif Digital Repository

We describe here a theoretical framework to model the bulk degradation of hydrogels, which are prepared by chemical cross-linking of pendant functional groups on long polymer chains. The random order of the cleavage of degradable bonds was described by stochastic Monte Carlo simulation. The events of bond cleavage were related to the macroscopic changes of hydrogel by the Bray-Merrill equation. Next, the time for the gel to disintegrate was predicted by considering the relation between the recursive nature in breaking the cross-link nodes and gel-to-sol transition. To start the simulation, initial network properties including the number of active functional groups on the polymer chain and... 

Four derivatives of hyaluronic acid (HA) bearing thiol (HA-SH), hydrazide (HA-hy), 2-dithiopyridyl (HA-SSPy), and aldehyde groups (HA-al) respectively were synthesized. Thiol and 2-dithiopyridyl as well as hydrazide and aldehyde make up two chemically orthogonal pairs of chemo-selective functionalities that allow in situ formation of interpenetrating (IPN) disulfide and hydrazone networks simultaneously upon the mixing of the above derivatives at once. The formation of IPN was demonstrated by comparing it with the formulations of the same total HA concentration but lacking one of the reactive components. The hydrogel composed of all four components was characterized by a larger elastic...