Richard Schmidt is R&D Manager at Chempilots a/s. He holds a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management.

Chempilots is a Contract R&D Company. Chempilots develops new products and processes by innovative application of chemistry and technology. The company has special capabilities within polymer chemistry, polymer processing, polymer usage, and speciality chemicals production. Chempilots has assisted cilients in developing products and processes within fields as diverse as contact lenses, PU foams and contolled release systems.

Hydrogels have been widely used within bio-medical fields for many years and for many good reasons. The enormous capacity to swell water as much as up to 1000 time its own weight and yet remain integrated favours versatile use of the hydrogels as well as contributing to product biocompatibility and relatively low volume costs.

Some basic chemistry and processing considerations in utilising hydrogels will be reviewed, especially in cross-linking and design of hydrogels. For our company hydrogels have been and increasingly will be one of the major scientific and business focus areas. Serving the medical device industry and biotech, pharmaceutical and chemical companies, we have been working with hydrogels for several decades using systems of e.g. cross-linked HEMA, PEO and hydrocolloids, polyurethane and acrylamide.

The speaker will include a few development projects as cases, where hydrogels have successfully been used: Controlled drug release, low friction guidewire coating, surgical tissue repair and a new print transfer technology. The versatility of hydrogels suggests that many innovative bio-medical products can still be made by proper choice of hydrogel chemistry and polymer engineering to become future workhorses.