i am working on rheological properties of polymeric blends hydrogel but if i want it to correlate with structural studies of gel samples ,can we do other characterizations of hydrogel samples?
this is a very interesting technical question. Unfortunately I cannot provide an expert answer because we work in the field of synthetic inorganic chemistry. However, there are a number of relevant review articles about this topic available which migth help you in your analysis. For example, please have a look at the following potentially useful literature references:
Hydrogel: Preparation, characterization, and applications: A review
Article Hydrogel: Preparation, characterization, and applications: A review
and
Hydrogels: Methods of Preparation, Characterisation and Applications
Chapter Hydrogels: Methods of Preparation, Characterisation and Applications
Fortunately both reviews are freely available as public full texts on RG so that you can download them as pdf files and print them out if needed.
Yes, it is possible. I have performed both SEM & TEM of hydrogel to determine their structure. You may need to standardize the steps but generally, it is spreading of hydrogel on the conductive silica wafers or glass substrates then let them dry completely using a dessicator before SEM processing. Similarly, for TEM also spread the sample, dry it & do uranyl acetate (UA) staining.
I'm currently working with hydrogels myself. It's safe to say that we can characterize such systems through different microscopic techniques, in that subject I've used Cryo-TEM (Poloxamer).
Currently I'm struggling with DSC but maybe for my other components since there are several articles suggesting DSC studies (or micro DSC), and even correlating to G' and G'' modules.
Recommended articles:
In situ gelling systems based on Pluronic F127 / Pluronic F68 formulations
for ocular drug delivery
Visualization of supramolecular structure of Pluronic F127 micellar hydrogels using cryo-TEM