OUR RESEARCH FOCUS
Jinhwan Yoon lab mainly focuses on soft polymers, specifically stimuli-responsive hydrogels.
HYDROGELS
Hydrogels are three-dimensional elastic networks that can uptake extensive amount of water, which induces them to have biocompatible property. Hydrogel networks consisting of stimuli-responsive polymers can also exhibit a reversible volume phase transition in response to external stimuli such as temperature, pH, light, and an applied magnetic field. Those features allow hydrogels to have applications in many area such as drug delivery, sensors, and tissue engineering.
STRETCHABLE ELECTROLUMINESCENT IONOGELS
With double network ionogels, our lab developed a stretchable electroluminescent device, which has a stable performance over 1000 stretching cycles under a harsh temperature of 200 C
SMART WINDOWS
Reducing energy consumption is the top priority to overcome global warming. One of the primary energy use in developed country is operation of buildings. To overcome it, we took advantage of thermal-responsive hydrogels to demonstrate a smart window, which automatically turns opaque in respons to temperature increase as well as sunlight intensity
HYDROGEL SENSORS
In recent days, there is a high demand for strain sensor to realize soft robotics, artificial organs, human-motion sensors, etc. Based on that call, our lab has developed a sensitive, stretchable, and reversible hydrogel strain sensor microfibers.
HYDROGELS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATION
Our lab have explored hydrogel's usage for biomedical application. We demonstrated a visible light responsive transdermal patch, which allows an ease drug loading and broad controllability of release kinetics. Furthermore, we also developed a hydrogels with antibacterial property without infusion of drugs.
MICROFLUIDIC SYSTEM
With microfluidic system, we have succesfully prepared hydrogel microfibers with various geometries. Through this system, we have also demonstrated pH and temperature responsive microfibers with fully controllable inner and outer diameter. This discovery has possible future applications such as for artificial human blood vessel.
IONOGELS
The development of smart gel materials which utilize designable polymer and solvent create new material with great chemical and thermal stability, ionic conductivity, and wide operation temperature.