CHEMICAL VALVES BASED ON VEGETAL XYLEMS MODIFIED WITH PH DEPENDENT HYDROGELS

M.R. ROMERO; ALEXIS WOLFEL; GISELLA TREJO NIEVA; CÉSAR G. GOMEZ

Córdoba

Congreso; II Brazil-Argentine Microfluidics Congress. V Congreso de Microfluídica Argentina.; 2019

Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía, Física y Computación, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, AR

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. In particular, the development of macroscopic non-electrical chemical actuators that change their state in a few seconds remains as a scientific challenge hitherto restricted to micrometer devices. On the other hand, the construction of multiple micrometric actuator devices to commutate simultaneously is a very laborious and expensive challenge. In this work, a singular alternative is proposed. A chemical actuator 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 developed under 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 scaffolds combined with tailor-made synthetic polymers.