• Biomaterials Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.235-248
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• 2018

Background: Injectable hydrogels have been extensively researched for the use as scaffolds or as carriers of therapeutic agents such as drugs, cells, proteins, and bioactive molecules in the treatment of diseases and cancers and the repair and regeneration of tissues. It is because they have the injectability with minimal invasiveness and usability for irregularly shaped sites, in addition to typical advantages of conventional hydrogels such as biocompatibility, permeability to oxygen and nutrient, properties similar to the characteristics of the native extracellular matrix, and porous structure allowing therapeutic agents to be loaded. Main body: In this article, recent studies of injectable hydrogel systems applicable for therapeutic agent delivery, disease/cancer therapy, and tissue engineering have reviewed in terms of the various factors physically and chemically contributing to sol-gel transition via which gels have been formed. The various factors are as follows: several different non-covalent interactions resulting in physical crosslinking (the electrostatic interactions (e.g., the ionic and hydrogen bonds), hydrophobic interactions, ${\pi}$-interactions, and van der Waals forces), in-situ chemical reactions inducing chemical crosslinking (the Diels Alder click reactions, Michael reactions, Schiff base reactions, or enzyme-or photo-mediated reactions), and external stimuli (temperatures, pHs, lights, electric/magnetic fields, ultrasounds, or biomolecular species (e.g., enzyme)). Finally, their applications with accompanying therapeutic agents and notable properties used were reviewed as well. Conclusion: Injectable hydrogels, of which network morphology and properties could be tuned, have shown to control the load and release of therapeutic agents, consequently producing significant therapeutic efficacy. Accordingly, they are believed to be successful and promising biomaterials as scaffolds and carriers of therapeutic agents for disease and cancer therapy and tissue engineering.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.144-152
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• 2021

Understanding charge transfer across the interface between organic semiconductor and gate insulator gives insight into the development of high-performance organic memory as well as highly stable organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). In this work, we firstly unveil a novel interfacial charge transfer mechanism, in which hole transfer from organic semiconductor to polymer insulator was nonlinearly boosted by localized states coupling. For this, OFETs based on rubrene single crystal semiconductor and Mylar gate insulator were fabricated via vacuum lamination, which allows stable repetition of lamination and delamination between semiconductor and gate insulator. The surfaces of rubrene single crystal and Mylar film were selectively degraded by photo-induced oxygen diffusion and UV-ozone treatment, respectively. Consequently, we found that the interfacial charge transfer and resultant bias-stress effect were nonlinearly boosted by coupling between localized states in rubrene and Mylar. In particular, the small number of localized states in rubrene single crystal provided fluent pathway for interfacial charge transport.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.321-327
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• 2014

Polymer dispersed liquid crystal lenses of the cell gap of $11{\mu}m$ and $30{\mu}m$ were made from a uniformly dispersed mixture of 40 wt% NOA65 prepolymer - 60 wt% E7 liquid crystal with the variations of the additional photoinitiator. The photoinitiator, benzophenone of 5.0 wt% was originally in the commercial prepolymer NOA65. In this works, the influence of the benzophenone amount intentionally added in the commercial NOA65 on the electrical properties of polymer dispersed liquid crystal lens for smart electronic glasses. The additional quantities of the photoinitiator were 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 wt% of the weight of NOA65 - E7 mixture. All the electro-optical properties of the sample with added benzophenone such as the driving voltage, the slope of the linear region, the response time and contrast ratio were more improved than that of commercial NOA65 only. These improvements were due to the increase of the average size of E7 liquid crystal droplets in the samples with the increase of the added benzophenon amount. The liquid crystal droplet size was increased from $5.3{\mu}m$ to $12.2{\mu}m$ when the photoinitiator was added from 0 wt% to 8 wt%. At the same concentration range of the photoinitiator, the driving voltage was ranged from 11.1 V to 17.3 V. The slopes of the linear region were in the range of 10.35~13.96 %T/V, which were more enhanced than that of NOA65 without the additional benzophenone. In particular, though the deteriorations by cell gap of $11{\mu}m$ were so effective to offset the influence of the added benzophenone for both rising and falling response time, it is confirmed that there were still somewhat improvement by the additional benzophenone. Response time and contrast ratios of all the samples with excess benzophenone were slightly enhanced.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.421-421
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• 2006

The light and energy-efficiency of classical liquid crystal displays is notoriously poor due to the use of absorption-based linear polarisers and colour filters. For instance, the light efficiency of PVAL polarisers is typically between 40 and 45 % and the colour filters have a typical efficiency below 35 % which results in a total light and energy-efficiency of the display below 10 %. In the past, a variety of polarizers were developed with an enhanced efficiency in generating linearly polarized light. Typically, these polarizers are based on the polarisationselective reflection, scattering or refraction of light i.e. one polarisation direction of light is directly transmitted to the LCD/viewer and the other polarization direction of light is depolarised and recycled which results in a typical efficiency for generating linearly polarized light of 70-85 %. Also, special colour filters have been proposed based on chiral-nematic reactive mesogens which increase the efficiency of generating colour. Despite the enormous progress in this field, a need persists for improved methods for generating polarized light and colour based on low cost optical components with a high efficiency. Here, the use of holographic phase gratings is reported for the generation of polarized light and colour. The phase grating are recorded in a photopolymer which is coated onto a backor frontlight for LCDs. Typically the recording is performed in the transmisson mode or in the waveguiding mode and slanted phase gratings are generated with their refractive index modulation at an angle between 20o and 45o with the normal of the substrate. It is shown that phase gratings with a high refractive index modulation and a high efficiency can be generated by a proper selection of the photopolymer and illumination conditions. These phase gratings coupleout linearly polarized light with a high contrast (> 100) and the light is directed directly to the LCD/viewer without the need for redirection foils. Dependent on the type of phase grating, the different colours are coupled-out at a slightly different angle which potentially increases the efficiency of classical colour filters. Moreover, the phase gratings are completely transparent in direct view which opens the possibility to use them in frontlights for LCDs. Holographic polarization gratings posses a periodic pattern in the polarization state of light (and not in the intensity of light). A periodic pattern in the polarization direction of linearly polarized light is obtained upon interference of two circularly polarized laser beams. In the second part of the lecture, it is shown that these periodic polarization patterns can be recorded in a linear photo-polymerizable polymer (LPP) and that such an alignment layer induces a period rotation in the director of (reactive and non-reactive) liquid crystals. By a proper design, optical components can be produced with only first order diffraction and with a very high efficiency (>0.98). It is shown that these diffraction gratings are potentially useful in projection displays with a high brightness and energy efficiency

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.221-226
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• 2016

Production of eco-friendly and biologically harmless materials is strongly required in all industries. In particular, reducing volatile organic compounds in coating processes is extremely important to secure worker's safety. During recent two decades, extensive research works on water-borne polyurethane dispersion (PUD) have been continuously developed as an alternative to solvent-borne polyurethane. However, PUD was shown inferior mechanical properties to the organic solvent-borne polyurethane due to a limit to the molecular weight increase, which resulted in the limit of applications. To overcome this drawback, several approaches have been examined such as polymer blends and thermal/radiation induced crosslinking. Among these methods, the radiation curing system was suitable for industrialization because of the high crosslinking density and fast curing speed. In this study, we overcame the drawback for PUD via introducing benzophenone radiation curable units to PUD. We synthesized PUD films which possessed good dispersion in water for 30 days, increased Tg and Td more than $5^{\circ}C$ after UV curing film as well as improved young's modulus more than double.

• Clean Technology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.115-123
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• 2021

This study demonstrates a new method for the synthesis of organic-inorganic hybrid particles composed of an inorganic silica shell and organic core particles. The organic core particles are prepared with a uniform size using droplet-based microfluidic technology. In the process of preparing the organic core particles, uniform droplets are generated by independently controlling the flow rates of the dispersed phase containing photocurable resins and the continuous phase. After the generation of droplets in a microfluidic device, the droplets are photo-polymerized as particles by ultraviolet irradiation at the ends of microfluidic channels. The core particle is coated with a nano complex composed of polyallylamine hydrochloride (PAH) and phosphate ion (Pi) through strong non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction under optimized pH conditions. The polyamine nano complex rapidly induces the condensation reaction of silicic acid through the arranged amine groups of the main chain of PAH. Therefore, this method enabled the preparation of organic-inorganic hybrid particles coated with inorganic silica nanoparticles on the organic core. Finally, we demonstrated the synthesis of organic-inorganic hybrid particles in a short time under ambient and environmentally friendly conditions, and this is applicable to the production of organic-inorganic hybrid particles having various sizes and shapes.