In-Situ Thermoreversible Gelation of Block and Star Copolymers of Poly(ethylene glycol) and Poly(<i>N</i>-isopropylacrylamide) of Varying Architectures
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We report the development of a new gelation mechanism and a new family of polymers that self-assembles to form gels in a thermoreversible fashion. The polymers are block or star copolymers with a central hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) segment (A) and temperature responsive poly( N -isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) terminal segments (B). Copolymers of various architectures, AB, A(B) 2, A(B) 4, and A(B) 8, were synthesized to investigate the structures and properties relationship. At 5 °C, the viscosities of 20 wt % solutions were between 700 and 950 cP, and they could be easily injected through a 25 G needle. Upon warming to body temperature, A(B) 2, A(B) 4, and A(B) 8 formed a strong associative network gel with aggregates of PNIPAAm segments acting as physical cross-links, whereas AB formed a weaker gel by micellar packing and entanglement. The values of elastic modulus, loss tangent, and yield strength were 1000−2500 Pa, 0.24−0.62, and 200−860 Pa, respectively. The gelation kinetic was fast; a typical gelation time for a solution of 5 mL in volume was less than a minute. No significant syneresis was observed after 2 months at 37 °C. DSC results indicated that the thermal behavior of material was completely reversible even after 30 heat-and-cool cycles. These materials are promising candidates for in-situ gelation applications such as injectable drug delivery, tissue engineering scaffolds, and anatomical barriers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".