Neslihan Alemdar
Marmara University,TURKEY
Title: Fabrication of reduced graphene oxide/chitosan-based conductive hydrogel for biomedical applications
Biography
Biography: Neslihan Alemdar
Abstract
Fabrication of reduced graphene oxide/chitosan-based conductive hydrogel for biomedical applications: Recently, novel composite hydrogels composed of biopolymers and conductive inorganic additives such as graphene (G) or graphene oxide (GO) have been attracted great interests owing to excellent properties of conducting polymers and graphene or graphene oxide including high electric conductivity at room temperature, long term environmental stability, good electrochemical activity and biocompatibility of biopolymers, as well as unique electrical and chemical properties of G or GO. Hydrogels obtained by using biopolymers and graphene/graphene oxide can be applied in many fields such as tissue engineering, electrochemical sensors and biosensors for the detection of certain special substances. In this study, reduced graphene oxide (RGO)-based conductive hydrogel was produced by photopolymerization technique. For this, glycidyl methacrylate was grafted on the chitosan backbone and following this grafted product was exposed to UV light with poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate to form polymeric network. Reduced graphene oxide at varying ratios was encapsulated into the polymeric network during the photopolymerization process to obtain conductive composite hydrogel. The fabricated conductive hydrogel with this way was characterized by FT-IR, SEM, and XRD analyses. Swelling capacity of hydrogel was determined by gravimetrically. Thermal behavior of conductive hydrogel was observed by TGA analyses. Conductivity measurements were carried out by 4-probe method. As a result, it can be stated that RGO-based conductive hydrogels with an enhanced thermal performance could be produced and it is visualized a utilization of this conductive hydrogel for biomedical applications for future works.