Resumen:

Hydrogels are used in daily life to make our lives easier; they can be used for medicine, architecture, security fields, and others. In the case of this thesis, we focus on the polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) for the matrix of the Hydrogel. Hydrogels with other copolymers in the matrix like Starch, Gelatin, Xanthan Gum, Chitosan, Poly(Ethyleneimine) (PEI), etc., increase the mechanical properties of the final hydrogel and easy printing increase the viscosity. On the other hand, an additional additive was introduced, flame retardant, to increase the intrinsic fire resistance of the hydrogels. The pre-hydrogels can be gel-printed and later crosslinked by chemical and/or physical crosslinking like UV curing, catalyst, enzyme, freeze-thawing, ionic interchange, change pH, annealing, or decreased temperature. These hydrogels have biological bases despite being synthetic and have different applications, not only in the field of medicine but this material can be used for personal protection or for building, even a specific object with a specific shape can be printed in 4D (in real-time), otherwise, hydrogels can be used as sensors to detect and protect against emergency situations. In this project, a commercial filament 3D printer will be adapted to be able to print hydrogels using the worm screw extrusion method.