Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.130, No.21, 6664-6664, 2008
Bonding of macromolecular hydrogels using perturbants
This work describes a method to bond patterned macromolecular gels into monolithic structures using perturbants. Bonding strengths for a variety of solutes follow a Hofmeister ordering; this result and optical measurements indicate that bonding occurs by reversible perturbation of conacting gels. The resulting microfluidic gels are mechanically robust and can serve as scaffolds for cell culture.