Department of Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2P5, Canada.
Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Macdonald Campus, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, H9X 3V9, Canada.
Carbohydr Polym. 2019 Oct 15;222:114977. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.114977. Epub 2019 Jun 7.
As medical practitioners' interest in hydrogels continues to grow, their new expectations in terms of mechanical properties, biocompatibility and durability are changed. Here, we demonstrated a new strategy to improve both mechanical properties and self-recovery of double network (DN) hydrogels by introducing a self-healing network, consisting of carboxymethyl chitosan (CMC) and dialdehyde cellulose nanocrystals (DACNC). Notably, the hydrogel could be repeatedly stretched to 4 times its initial length and has tensile strength of 244 kPa, and completely recovered its shape when compressed by 90% and had the compressive strength up to 8 MPa. In addition, the deformed hydrogel recovered 81.3% of its dissipated energy at room temperature without any external stimuli. The hydrogel also exhibited good biocompatibility. We have developed a new method to fabricate stretchable and tough hydrogels that could spontaneously self-repair following mechanical deformation. They are promising for controlled drug release and dye adsorption.
随着医学从业者对水凝胶的兴趣不断增长，他们对机械性能、生物相容性和耐用性的新期望也发生了变化。在这里，我们展示了一种通过引入自愈网络来提高双网络（DN）水凝胶的机械性能和自恢复能力的新策略，该自愈网络由羧甲基壳聚糖（CMC）和二醛纤维素纳米晶（DACNC）组成。值得注意的是，水凝胶可以反复拉伸至初始长度的 4 倍，拉伸强度为 244kPa，在压缩 90%时完全恢复形状，压缩强度高达 8MPa。此外，在没有任何外部刺激的情况下，变形的水凝胶在室温下可恢复 81.3%的耗散能。该水凝胶还表现出良好的生物相容性。我们已经开发出一种制造可拉伸和坚韧水凝胶的新方法，这种水凝胶可以在机械变形后自动进行自我修复。它们有望用于控制药物释放和染料吸附。
