Thermoresponsive Polyurethane Bearing Oligo(Ethylene Glycol) as Side Chain Without Polyol at Polymer Backbone Achieved Excellent Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Switching

In order to prepare thermoresponsive polyurethane gels, a novel polyurethane bearing oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) as the side chain is successfully synthesized with hexamethylene diisocyanate and OEG tartrate ester. The aqueous solution of the polyurethane shows sharp and clear lower critical solution temperature behavior at 34 °C. Furthermore, a hydrogel based on the same polyurethane is also successfully prepared using glycerol as the crosslinker. This polyurethane hydrogel including 10 mol% of glycerol presents a large swelling ratio change between 4 °C and 37 °C from 250% to 40%.