Browsing by Author "Demirci, Enes Hamdi"

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Preparation and characterization of UV crosslinked alginate-based tannic acid-reinforced hydrogels
(Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, 2023) Demirci, Enes Hamdi; AGÜ, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Biyomühendislik Ana Bilim Dalı
Alginate is a commonly used biopolymer in bioprinting applications. However, alginate-based bioinks have some mechanical limitations for printing purposes. Also, existing methacrylation methods are time consuming and have low methacrylation efficiencies. Based on these facts, we focused on enhancing mechanical strength of alginate within the scope of this thesis. To do this, we applied microwave irradiation during methacrylation process of alginate and compared the efficiencies between conventional and microwave irradiation. Here, we report a significantly faster and more effective method for the controlled synthesis of methacrylated alginate (Alg-MA) by microwave energy (250 W) with approximately 80% degree of methacrylation (DM) even with a very low amount of metyhacrylation agent (aminoethyl methacrylate (AEMA)). Rheological and mechanical analyses showed that Alg-MAs synthesized by microwave irradiation allowed the formation of more elastic and stronger hydrogels with very high stability than the ones synthesized by the conventional method. Additionally, we combined these hydrogels with tannic acid by a second cross-linking in order to improve their mechanical strength and tissue integration ability. Addition of TA provided hydrogels very good mechanical strength and also antibacterial characteristics towards gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. As a conclusion, hydrogels with mechanically superior properties and antibacterial characteristics were obtained by MW-assisted methacrylation and physical cross-linking by TA.