Emulsiyon kalıplama yöntemiyle fonksiyonel malzeme tasarımı: Enerji ve biyomedikal uygulamalar

Incorporating functional materials into immiscible mediums has been a conventional challenge in materials science. Solid structures are formed via templating stable liquid emulsions to overcome this challenge. In the first part of thesis, we designed a composite membrane via Pickering Emulsion templating, which integrates a hydrophobic styrene-butediene-styrene (SBS) polymer phase and hydrophilic agar phase that incorporates ionic salts for anti-icing property on bitumen surfaces. We demonstrated significant freezing delay with composite-modified bitumen compared to base bitumen in different temperature controlled chambers with temperatures of -14 and -2 °C. In addition, we investigated morphological and salt release properties of composite modified bitumen and observed potassium formate release for 67 days. Furthermore, we investigated altered ionic salts consisting of potassium formate, sodium chloride or magnesium chloride. These results are promising and suggest the potential of this polymer composite-modified bitumen for anti-icing functionality and for industrially relevant applications. In seond part of thesis, we synthesized polyethylene glycol (PEG) nanospheres via water-in-water emulsion templating method based on phase separation of dextran and PEG prepolymer and achieved the synthesis of nano-scale PEG hydrogel particles for biomedical applications. Next, we investigated the release kinetics of a model drug, pregabalin from PEG nanospheres. In the last part, we synthesized photocrosslinked SBS network and designed SBS-PEG hybrid gels for sustained drug release purposes. We achieved extended release of anti rheumatoid arthritis drug from SBS-PEG gels up to 28 days. Cell-survival assay suggested that PEG nanospheres and SBS-PEG gels are non-toxic, and can be considered for controlled drug/molecule delivery.