Dottorato in INGEGNERIA ELETTRICA, DEI MATERIALI E DELLE
NANOTECNOLOGIE

Titolo della tesi: Smart hydrogel materials based on thermo-responsive polymers for biomedical applications: a theoretical and experimental analysis of the swelling behaviour

Over the years, thermo-responsive hydrogels based on Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm), which show particular properties that can be exploited for biomedical applications, have been extensively studied. Their main feature is the reversible volumetric transition which occurs at a specific temperature, determined by the passage from the swelling state to the collapsed state (shrinking) of the structure. In this project, numerical simulations of finite element method (FEM) have been developed to study and analyse the behaviour of PNIPAm-based hydrogel subjected to the application of a stimulus of temperature. Furthermore, to give empirical evidence on how the degree of crosslinking affects the volumetric behaviour of these materials, the the process of hydrogel synthesis and the characterization techniques for the study of the thermal behaviour of the NIPAM-based materials were conducted.