title: Natural electroactive hydrogel from soy protein isolation.
abstract: A natural electroactive protein hydrogel was prepared from soy protein isolate (SPI) solution by cross-linking with epichlorohydrin. Under electrical stimulus, such SPI hydrogel quickly bends toward one electrode, showing a good electroactivity. Because of its amphoteric nature, the SPI hydrogel bends either toward the anode (pH < 6) or cathode (pH > 6), depending on the pH of the electrolyte solution. Other factors, such as electric field strength, ionic strength and gel thickness also influence the electromechanical behavior of the SPI hydrogels. Moreover, this SPI hydrogel exhibits a good electroactive behavior under strong acidic (pH = 2 - 3) or basic (pH = 11 - 12) solutions, which is a significant improvement over two other kinds of natural electroactive hydrogels, i.e., chitosan/carboxymethylcellulose and chitosan/carboxymethylchitosan hydrogel, which we reported previously. The wide pH range and good electroactivity of this natural protein hydrogel suggests its great potential for microsensor and actuator applications, especially in the biomedical field, and also to increase the scope of natural polymer-based electroactive hydrogels.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers of MOE, Department of Macromolecular Science, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Zhengzhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D003432:Cross-Linking Reagents; D055664:Electrochemical Techniques; D004566:Electrodes; D004573:Electrolytes; D004811:Epichlorohydrin; D020100:Hydrogels / Q000737:chemistry*; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D030262:Soybean Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D003432:Cross-Linking Reagents; D004573:Electrolytes; D020100:Hydrogels; D030262:Soybean Proteins; D004811:Epichlorohydrin