Study on the electrodriven action of gelatin hydrogel in silicone oil

Abstract

Action of gelatin hydrogel crosslinked with glutaraldehyde under dc electric field of high voltage was studied. The experimental results show that the hydrogel can be driven by dc electric field of high voltage in the medium of silicone oil, and the action of the hydrogel is composed of rotation and translation. There is a low critical applied voltage of 0.5 kV, below which the action of the hydrogel may not be observed. The motion velocity and angle of the rotation of gelatin hydrogel are influenced by the electric field intensity. Because silicone oil is very stable and hard to electrolyze in electric field, gas formation associated with the electrolysis of water, which is inevitable and disadvantageous in conventional system of electric-stimulus-response hydrogel, would not happen. Our work has provided a novel kind of electrodriven methods for hydrogels.

Natural and Synthetic Polyampholytes, 2

“…[88,89] These properties may be exploited to construct chemomechanical devices, drug delivery systems, artificial muscles, energy conversion systems, etc. Deformation of a polyampholyte gel depends on the net charge on the network and the intensity of the electric field.…”

Study on characteristics of the electric‐field‐sensitive hydrogel inspired by jelly in the ampullae of Lorenzini of elasmobranchs

“…The maximum bending angle of the 2.0%vol/vol agarose hydrogel reached 74.6° under a 600 V/mm electric field. But there is still a noteworthy issue that the process of water electrolysis under the relatively strong electric stimuli should be taken into account 29,31,32 . To avoid this negative effect, the voltage applied to hydrogels in water or saline solution environments must be lower than the threshold voltage of water electrolysis, which increases the difficulty of detecting subsequently reduced electric field signals and limits the applications of electric‐field‐sensitive hydrogels in liquid environments.…”

“…But there is still a noteworthy issue that the process of water electrolysis under the relatively strong electric stimuli should be taken into account. 29,31,32 To avoid this negative effect, the voltage applied to hydrogels in water or saline solution environments must be lower than the threshold voltage of water electrolysis, which increases the difficulty of detecting subsequently reduced electric field signals and limits the applications of electric-field-sensitive hydrogels in liquid environments. In the field of biomedicine, A. Gholamipour-Shirazi et al designed a stimuli-sensitive carrageenan based hydrogel as a drug delivery carrier from which folic acid could be released at a constant rate in response to electric stimuli.…”