Effects of Particle-Hydrogel Interactions on Hydrogel Stiffness Valeria Tohver Milam School of Materials Science & Engineering and Dept of Biomedical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA Hydrogel matrix Embedded colloids as interactive filler Our goal is to generate hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties. We have studied the effects of hydrogel composition, volume fraction as well as the effects of adding cationic and anionic polystyrene lattices and carbon nanotubes on the shear elastic modulus of hydrogels. We have found that a shear modulus range of 0.05-7x104 Pa through hydrogel composition and volume fraction effects alone. COO - COO - NH 3 + COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO - - COO COO COO COO - - - - Inert or slightly repulsive Electrostatically attractive particle-hydrogel interface particle-hydrogel interface