Accelerated Engineering of Optimized Functional Composite Hydrogels via High-Throughput Experimentation.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Chemical Engineering
• Biomaterials Engineering

Background:

• The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) aims to speed up advanced materials discovery.
• Engineering functional materials often involves balancing processability and performance.
• High-throughput experimentation (HTE) is crucial for accelerating materials development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate an automated HTE method for soft materials.
• To enable rapid screening of hydrogel composition-property relationships.
• To optimize functional composite hydrogels for processability and performance.

Main Methods:

• Automated formulation, synthesis, and multiproperty characterization of soft materials in well plate formats.
• High-throughput screening of hydrogel composition-property relations.
• Application to alginate/poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA)/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) hydrogel systems.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated feasibility and utility of the HTE method for functional composite hydrogels.
• Successfully identified formulations of conductive PEGDMA/PEDOT:PSS hydrogels.
• Optimized hydrogel properties for both performance and processability in 3D printing.

Conclusions:

• The developed HTE method accelerates the engineering of soft functional materials.
• Automated dispensing, mixing, and sensing advance experimental capabilities for materials development.
• This approach facilitates the creation of advanced composite hydrogels with tailored properties.