Project Details
Projekt
GRK 1865: Hydrogel-based Microsystems
Subject Area
Polymer Research
Systems Engineering
Systems Engineering
Term
from 2013 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 211944370
Hydrogels are cross-linked polymer networks able to absorb or to release large amounts of water. The water uptake is associated with a considerable volume change. In doing so, special gels, the so-called stimuli-responsive hydrogels, show two remarkable properties: (a) Due to the volume phase transistion behavior, the strong volume change can be excited by a large spectrum of different physical (e.g. temperature, electrical voltage, magnetic field) and chemical factors (e.g. pH value). (b) This swelling process is reversible. These properties make hydrogels a promising candidate for being used in sensors and actuators and allow their integration into microsystems. Hence, hydrogel-based microsystems enable novel solutions in microsystem technology which are of high functional potential and cost-effective. Over the past years manifold research activities concerning stimuli-responsive hydrogels have been seen, in particular focused on the synthesis and the study of the physico-chemical properties (e.g. DFG Priority Research Program on Intelligent Hydrogels). Our Research Training Group (RTG) aims at other goals. We target at the scientific fundamentals for particular hydrogel materials and properties essentially required for their usage in sensors and actuators. To achieve this goal many shortcomings have to be solved which hinder or even avoid the ap-plication of hydrogels in technical applications yet. On the one hand, particular materials and manufacturing processes are required which make the hydrogels suitable for these purposes (relevant functionality; high sensitivity, selectivity and long-term stability; fast response time). Such materials and processes will be developed and studied numerically and experimentally. On the other hand, these materials and processes will be used for dedicated microsystems (e.g. long-term-stable pressure-compensated pH sensors, biochemical sensors, chemical logic devices, microfluidic synthesis processors etc.). In the first funding period a multitude of new insights and results could be achieved regarding both the fundamental principles as well as the application fields considered. However, the number of unsolved questions which have to be solved for the development of hydrogelbased microsystems, is still big. For that reason, it remains still our goal to continue to pursuit the already targeted direction of our research. With its aspects of microsystem technology, structural mechanics, fluid mechanics, and chemistry, the research program of our RTG is very versatile. Therefore, it requires scientists educated interdisciplinary within all of these many scientific fields. RTGs with their interdisciplinary research, qualification and mentoring concept seem to us to be still the optimal frame to achieve our goals.
DFG Programme
Research Training Groups
Applicant Institution
Technische Universität Dresden
Participating Institution
Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V. (IPF)
Spokesperson
Professor Dr.-Ing. Gerald Gerlach
