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Hydrogels are known to be covalently or ionic cross-linked, hydrophilic three-dimensional
polymer networks, which exist in our bodies in a biological gel form such as the vitreous
humour that fills the interior of the eyes. Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (poly(NIPAAm))
hydrogels are attracting more interest in biomedical applications because, besides others, they
exhibit a well-defined lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in water, around 31–34°C,
which is close to the body temperature. This is considered to be of great interest in drug
delivery, cell encapsulation, and tissue engineering applications. In this work, the
poly(NIPAAm) hydrogel is synthesized by free radical polymerization. Hydrogel properties
and the dimensional changes accompanied with the volume phase transition of the
thermosensitive poly(NIPAAm) hydrogel were investigated in terms of Raman spectra,
swelling ratio, and hydration. The thermal swelling/deswelling changes that occur at different
equilibrium temperatures and different solutions (phenol, ethanol, propanol, and sodium
chloride) based on Raman spectrum were investigated. In addition, Raman spectroscopy has
been employed to evaluate the diffusion aspects of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and phenol
through the poly(NIPAAm) network. The determination of the mutual diffusion coefficient,
\(D_{mut}\) for hydrogels/solvent system was achieved successfully using Raman spectroscopy at
different solute concentrations. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the hydrogel, which
were investigated by uniaxial compression tests, were used to characterize the hydrogel and to
determine the collective diffusion coefficient through the hydrogel. The solute release coupled
with shrinking of the hydrogel particles was modelled with a bi-dimensional diffusion model
with moving boundary conditions. The influence of the variable diffusion coefficient is
observed and leads to a better description of the kinetic curve in the case of important
deformation around the LCST. A good accordance between experimental and calculated data
was obtained.