Morphology assessment of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) hydrogels using multivariate analysis of viscoelastic and swelling properties

• Published in: Polymer (Guilford) Vol. 58; pp. 222 - 229
• Main Authors: Karpushkin, Evgeny, Bogomolov, Andrey
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 10.02.2015
• Subjects: Assessments; Hydrogel; Hydrogels; Microscopy; Morphology; Phase separation; Principal component analysis; Spatial resolution; Swelling; Variable selection; Viability; Phase separation; Hydrogel; Variable selection
• ISSN: 0032-3861; 1873-2291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2014.11.039

Porous swollen hydrogels are unique materials that are specifically important for biomedical and chromatography applications. Direct analysis of their utilitarian properties, i.e. cell viability and growth, is time-consuming and hardly suited for routine testing of materials under development. Microscopy is an alternative method to assess the hydrogels porosity which is the main quality attribute of the material. However, spatial resolution of light microscopy may be insufficient, and scanning electron microscopic images are often subject to artifacts. In this work a designed representative set of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) hydrogel samples having widely varying morphological properties were analyzed using a number of laboratory techniques. Exploratory data analysis has allowed explaining the effects experimental conditions on the resulting hydrogels structure. Principal component analysis has been applied to select an optimal set of analytical variables that are suitable for the reliable material screening. We have proved that the method based on the analysis of the hydrogels swelling and mechanical behavior is capable of distinguishing the most valuable hydrogels with interconnected macropores from other morphological forms. [Display omitted] •Multivariate analysis of mechanical and swelling properties of model hydrogels.•Macroporous hydrogels can be efficiently distinguished from their other morphological forms.•Univariate analysis is not efficient to elucidate the hydrogel morphology.•Proper selection of the variables to be included in the PCA model significantly reduces the test duration.