High water content hydrogel with super high refractive index

• Main Authors: Zhou, Chuncai, Heath, Daniel E., Sharif, Abdul Rahim Mohamed, Rayatpisheh, Shahrzad, Oh, Bernice H. L., Rong, Xu, Chan-Park, Mary B., Beuerman, Roger W.
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Chemical engineering::Polymers and polymer manufacture
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/101682; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/19782
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Transparent, high water content (>65%), and cytocompatible hydrogels, which also possess super high refractive indices (RI > 1.5), are needed for ophthalmological applications. Most hydrogels can achieve either high RI or high water content but not both in the same system because water is a low RI material. Here, high water content/high RI hydrogels fabricated through elevated-temperature UV polymerization of an aqueous solution of acrylamide (AM) and methacrylamide (MAM) with tri(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (TEDA) crosslinker are reported. By varying the AM:MAM ratios (2:8 to 8:2) and crosslinker density (5 to 11 mol %), it is discovered that high water content (66%) AM:MAM copolymer hydrogels exhibiting anomalously high refractive indices (1.53); they are also colorless, transparent (99.4%), and cytocompatible with human keratinocytes.