Amphiphilic hydrogels with highly ordered hydrophobic dendritic domains

This chapter describes the synthesis of amphiphilic hydrogels with highly organized crosslink junctions based on the reaction of poly(ethylene) glycol, PEG, and perfectly branched (dendritic) macromolecules. The synthetic strategy employs linear PEG with isocyanate end-groups as the hydrophilic component and hydrophobic dendritic poly(benzyl ethers) with amino-groups at the periphery. It is found that the crosslinking reaction proceeds fast at room temperature the efficiency being governed by the stoichiometric ratio of the two building blocks. The swelling of the gels formed is affected by the relative PEG content, by the polarity of the medium and the temperature.