Evaluation of UV-crosslinked Poly(ethylene glycol) Diacrylate/Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Dimethacrylate Hydrogel: Properties for Tissue Engineering Application

Hydrogels are widely used as biomaterials in biomedicalfields such as in drug delivery systems, cell-based therapies, wound dressing, implant materials for soft tissue and anti-adhesion materials due to its unique characteristics. The aim of this project is to fabricate UV-crosslinked hydrogel film with the tailored chemical and physical properties that can be utilized as scaffold. Three series of UV-crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate/ poly(dimethylsiloxane) dimethacrylate (PEGDA/PDMS-MA) hydrogels were fabricatedby exposing the precursor solutions under UV chamber that provides a spectral range of UVA at average intensity of 40W/cm². Equilibrium swelling ratio (ESR) was found higher in the UV-crosslinked hydrogels that exposed to the UV at shorter time, with lower loading of PDMS-MA, and higher molecular weight of PEGDA. The concentration of photoinitiator was found to haveinsignificant effect on ESR%. Whereas, dynamic contact angle (DCA) measurement revealed that the hydrophilicity was higher forPEGDA UV-crosslinked hydrogels with higher ratio. Besides, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA)showed that the incorporation of PDMS-MA reduced the average value of compressive modulus of the UV-crosslinked hydrogels. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis showed that lower glass transition temperature (T_g) of PDMS-MA could be related to the reduction of stiffness in UV-crosslinked hydrogels. It was found that the fabricated UV-crosslinked hydrogels were suited to cartilage tissue engineering application due to similar properties to the cartilage tissue.