Changjiang Fan,Chao Zhang,Liqiong Liao,Sheng Li,Weiping Gan,Jinping Zhou,Dong-An Wang,Lijian Liu
Abundant research efforts have been devoted to meet the demands for high-strength hydrogels in biomedical applications. Double-network (DN) hydrogels and homogeneous hydrogels are two typical samples. In this study, a novel ultra-strong and resilient double macromolecular network (DMMN) hydrogel system has been developed via a two-step sequential cross-linking process using hyaluronan (HA) and high molecular weight poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) for the first and second network, respectively. A lower concentration of the HA precursor solution and a higher concentration of the PEG precursor solution as well as a higher molecular weight of the PEG precursor are beneficial to produce high-strength DMMN gels. Dynamic light scattering measurements demonstrate that DMMN gels possess the more evenly distributed polymer networks; the distinctive double and relatively evenly distributed networks of the DMMN gel make it combine the current DN and homogeneous network strategies for preparing robust hydrogels. The optimized DMMN gel is capable of sustaining up to 50 MPa of compressive stress. Besides, DMMN gels exhibit excellent cytocompatibility. This study expands the DN principle in designing and fabricating high-strength hydrogels with biocompatible macromolecules that show a promising prospect for biomedical applications.
Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (DMM n ) are promising diesel additives. The synthesis of DMM n from methylal (DMM) and paraformaldehyde over the NKC-9 acidic ion-exchange resin catalyst was investigated. Many unrecyclable by-products such as methyl formate, dimethyl ether and formic acid were produced in the reaction. To increase the selectivity of the desired products DMM 3‒6 and reduce the amount of unrecyclable by-products, the effects of reaction temperature, time, pressure and the molar ratio of the raw materials were evaluated through a series of single factor experiments. Experiments revealed that trace amount of water could suppress the formation of unrecyclable by-products, and the optimum initial water content (less than 2 wt%) was investigated. In addition, the synthetic process needs to go through the polyoxymethylene hemiformals intermediate stage, and then the DMM n were obtained when polyoxymethylene hemiformals reacted with methanol. Ultimately, a possible mechanism is proposed to describe the formation of DMM n from polyoxymethylene hemiformals in detail, in which it is revealed that the formation of carbocation intermediates is important in the reaction processes.