Hello, I really have no experience with how to prepare PVA/GA films. These films will need to be spincoated to be ~200-500nm thick.
I have PVA (avg weight 85,000-124000, 87-89% hydrolyzed) and glutaraldehyde (50% aq. sol). I was told that you can heat PVA to 60C then add GA and heat to 95C for 3 hours. However, I'm not sure about what amounts of PVA and GA I should use. Does anyone have a good general recipe to get started with?
Also, I would like to know how/if I can store this. Can I make the hydrogel solution and store it to be spin coated for later use? Or do I need to spin coat immediately? Any details would be appreciated.
Dear Madison Cs , I suggest you put the prepared PVA film in a dessicator in which there is some gluteraldehyde solution and let it to stay in there for a day or two so it is sufficiently crosslinked by GA vapor. I have seen numerous articles that have crosslinked PVA using this strategy. Below you can find an article reporting this approach for crosslinking nanofibrous PVA.
Article Glutaraldehyde Vapor Cross-linked Nanofibrous PVA Mat with i...
Besides, I think the following paper might helpful as well.
Article Poly(vinyl alcohol) Films Crosslinked by Glutaraldehyde Unde...
Best,
Dear Madison, if you want to obtain homogeneous PVA films by spin-coating the suggestion of Mr. Mahdi Ghamsari is more adequate. If you combining PVA and GA before the film preparation, the PVA chains could be crosslinked, which will cause issues related to the solution dispersion and phase separation. Regarding the crosslinking process, it could be interesting to do it under acidic conditions, since the protonation of the hydroxyl groups of PVA can catalyze the reaction with GA. Regards.
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