Highly Tolerant and Durable Adhesion between Hydrogels Utilizing Intercalation of Cationic Substituents into Layered...

Adhering hydrogel systems are important particularly in the medical field because they can be used as adhesives cross-linking between living tissues. In this research, hydrogels including cationic substituents prepared via free-radical polymerization were brought into contact after applying an aqueous dispersion of the layered inorganic compound Micromica to their surfaces. As a result, the hydrogels adhered to each other due to the intercalation of cationic substituents included in the gel networks into the interlayers of Micromica. As the water content ratio of hydrogels decreased, the adhesive strength came to be higher, and finally the adhesively bonded joint supported a tensile load of 10 kg. Moreover, it was confirmed that the adhered hydrogels have high tolerance toward various environments, such as high or low temperatures and solvents.