Week One Progress

Figure 1: Diagram of preliminary design

The culmination of the hydrogel modulation design will yield a hydrogel wound dressing utilized for the therapeutic treatment of first-degree and second-degree exterior burns. A physical prototype of the hydrogel wound dressing will be produced by precipitating food-grade sodium alginate in a calcium chloride solution. The reaction yields spheres of low-density gel surrounded by a thin gelatinous membrane. The construction of an alginate dressing necessitates ionic cross-linking of the alginate solution with calcium ions, as to form the gel component. Both the high-density and low-density hydrogel layers will be generated in unison, before undergoing the freeze-drying process as to produce porous sheets. The physical prototype will be accompanied by a computer generated model of the hydrogel wound dressing, as evidenced in figure 1. The required components to construct the hydrogel adhesive were determined and subsequently purchased. The required components for the construction of the hydrogel adhesive, include: glassware, pipettes, sodium alginate, calcium chloride solution, FITC-BSA, spectrophotometer, and modeling tools. Moreover, food coloring will be required to dye the layers of hydrogel in different colors. Thus, the visible separation of hydrogel layers will determine whether the layers will transgress beyond the delineated boundaries. The construction of the tangible hydrogel adhesive prototype is expected to be completed within nine-weeks.