Development of hydrogels composites for potential use as biomaterials

Hydrogels, three-dimensional polymer networks that can absorb and retain impressive amounts of liquid, have shown a remarkable evolution in the past years. Since their first description, the hydrogels have replaced their inert characteristic by smart properties, which help enlarging the range of applicability of such soft materials in different fields. Hydrogels had been prepared from various polymers (including synthetic or natural or both), which allows obtaining materials with unique and desirable properties. This work deals with the preparation of hydrogels and hydrogel composites based on a synthetic/natural hybrid polymer network filled with bovine bone powder, which is composed mainly by hydroxyapatite (as inorganic phase) and collagen (as organic phase). The resulting materials were characterized by DRX, FTIR and TGA analyses. Additionally, water uptake capacity was estimated for both hydrogels and hydrogels composites samples by swelling assays. (author)