Characterizing the Phase Diagram of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-

methyl methacrylate)

INTRODUCTION:
From the large group of biomaterials found today, polymers are known to be
the most common and resourceful, allowing for their extensive use in many
areas. Examples of such applications include use as scaffold material in bone
repair1 and in microspheres for use in drug delivery systems2. The significant
advantage in the use of polymers is the ability to obtain particular chemical,
physical and biocompatible properties of the polymer by changing conditions
during the polymerization reaction. For example, some polymers are sensitive to
fluctuations in reagent concentrations, which can cause differences in polymer
morphology, such as increasing its stiffness or porosity. Therefore by
understanding the reagent conditions required to obtain particular polymer
morphology, it allows for polymers to be synthesized specifically to satisfy the
needs of their applications. One way of representing such info is through phase
diagrams - graphical representations of phases present at different ranges in
reagent composition. These are beneficial in obtaining reagent concentrations for
a particular polymer phase without having to test for a large range of conditions.
As such, a phase diagram (found in Appendix, Figure A1) was used in this
experiment to identify reagent concentrations in order to produce polymers in
specific phase regions.
The two monomers used to create the copolymer for this experiment was
poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (HEMA) and methyl methacrylate (MMA).
HEMA is a hydrophilic polymer, causing its homopolymer to form a soft, water
swollen gel that is highly porous and insoluble in water3. With the addition of
MMA, being a hydrophobic monomer, this can cause changes to the morphology
in terms of varying the modulus of the copolymer, creating a gel-like phase, or
varying its permeability, creating a spongy phase, depending on the amount of
MMA3. Also included in the reaction are ammonium persulfate (APS) and sodium
metabisulfite (SMBS), which are used as the redox initiators1 and ethylene
dimethacrylate (EDMA) is used as the cross linker agent. A detailed diagram of
the reaction process is in the Appendix, Figure A2.
The purpose of this experiment is to create the copolymer, poly(HEMA-co-
MMA) at different reagent concentrations based on the phase diagram. The
copolymers will then be used to characterize physical properties for different
phases – microporous, macroporous, immiscible and transparent gel, as well as
the boundary points between these phases. By understanding the physical
properties of the different phases allows one to target these properties for
specific applications.
REFERENCES
1
JM. Karp, PD. Dalton, MS. Shoichet. Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering. MRS Bulletin (April
2003) 301-306.
2
J. Guan, et al. Fabrication of polymeric microparticles for drug delivery by soft lithography.
Biomaterials 27 (2006) 4034-4041.
3
PD. Dalton, L. Flynn, MS. Shoichet. Manufacture of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-methyl
methacrylate) hydrogel tubes for use as nerve guidance channels. Biomaterials 23 (2002) 3843-
3851.

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A. Piotrowicz, MS. Shoichet. Nerve guidance channels as drug delivery vehicles. Biomaterials
27 (2006) 2018-2027