Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-13T08:08:56.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rheological Characterization of Alginate Based Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2017

Pengfei Duan
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UKSchool of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Nehir Kandemir
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Jiajun Wang
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Jinju Chen*
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
*
† Corresponding author: E-mail: Jinju.chen@ncl.ac.uk

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Hydrogels have been widely used in many applications from tissue engineering to drug delivery systems. For both tissue engineering and drug delivery, the mechanical properties are important because they would affect cell-materials interactions and injectability of drugs encapsulated in hydrogel carriers. Therefore, it is important to study the mechanical properties of these hydrogels, particularly at physiological temperature (37°C). This study adopted strain sweep and frequency sweep rotational rheological tests to investigate the rheological characteristics of various tissue engineering relevant hydrogels with different concentrations at 37°C. These hydrogels include alginate, RGD-alginate, and copolymerized collagen/alginate/fibrin. It has revealed that the addition of RGD has negligible effect on the elastic modulus and viscosity of alginate. Alginate gels have demonstrated shear thinning behavior which indicates that they are suitable candidates as carriers for cells or drug delivery. The addition of collagen and fibrin would reinforce the mechanical properties of alginate which makes it a strong scaffold material.

Information

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017