Hydrogels are cross-linked, hydrophobic polymers, which can absorb and keep enormous amount of water and maintain their structure. Hydrogel is defined as three-dimensional cross-linked polymeric network. When I was generating hydrogel from solution, I tried to obtain as homogenous hydrogel as possible. By changing the parameters, electric density, flow rate and deposition time, I optimized it in order to obtain homogenous hydrogel. I generated hydrogel from alginate and chitosan solutions in a flow microfluidic device. When generating hydrogel from an alginate solution, I measured the absorbance after different times of deposition to the hydrogel, which was used to determine the iron concentration in the hydrogel that was absorbed. I found that by increasing time of deposition more iron was absorbed into the hydrogel. Chitosan dissolved in acetic acid was not homogenous, so I did not measure the thickness of this hydrogel. I got good results from the chitosan solution that was prepared with HCl. I measured the thickness of the hydrogel generated in this way under an optical microscope.
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