US Patent Issued to Northwestern University on Nov. 11 for "Spiropyran hydrogels and light-driven expansion thereof" (Illinois Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,466,836, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.).

"Spiropyran hydrogels and light-driven expansion thereof" was invented by Chuang Li (Evanston, Ill.) and Samuel I. Stupp (Evanston, Ill.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided herein are sulfonate-based water-soluble photoswitches that, in contrast to existing systems, trigger a volumetric expansion in hydrogels upon exposure to photons; contraction is in turn observed under dark conditions in a highly reversible manner."

The patent was filed on March 17, 2022, under Application No. 17/697,286.

*For further information, including images, charts and t...