CHEMICAL VALVES BASED ON VEGETAL XYLEMS MODIFIED WITH PH DEPENDENT HYDROGELS

ROMERO, MARCELO R.; WOLFEL, ALEXIS; TREJO, GISELLA; GOMEZ, CESAR G.

Congreso; II Brazil?Argentine Microfluidics Congress / V Congreso Argentino de Microfluídica; 2019

The actuator field is in constant growth since it involves the creation of new composite materials, as well as the application of deep interdisciplinary expertise. Inparticular, the development of macroscopic non-electrical chemical actuators thatchange their state in a few seconds remains as a scientific challenge hitherto restricted to micrometer devices. On the other hand, the construction of multiplemicrometric actuator devices to commutate simultaneously is a very laborious andexpensive challenge. In this work, a singular alternative is proposed. A chemicalactuator valve was developed using a vegetable stem as micro-structured support.To do this,chemical modifications were made in the stem xylems of a Pumpkin(Cucurbita moschata) used as an array of parallel capillaries.Subsequently, apH-sensitive hydrogel based on acrylic acid was synthesized within these channels and the chemical properties and response of the actuator system developedunder different experimental conditions were studied. The actuator showed pHresponsive properties and fast response time. We expect that the proposed alternative could begin a research area of hybrid actuators based on biological scaffoldscombined with tailor-made synthetic polymers.