Challenges and recent trends with the development of hydrogel fiber for biomedical applications

Abstract

Hydrogel is the most emblematic soft material which possesses significantly tunable and programmable characteristics. Polymer hydrogels possess significant advantages including, biocompatible, simple, reliable and low cost. Therefore, research on the development of hydrogel for biomedical applications has been grown intensely. However, hydrogel development is challenging and required significant effort before the application at an industrial scale. Therefore, the current work focused on evaluating recent trends and issues with hydrogel development for biomedical applications. In addition, the hydrogel's development methodology, physicochemical properties, and biomedical applications are evaluated and benchmarked against the reported literature. Later, biomedical applications of the nano-cellulose-based hydrogel are considered and critically discussed. Based on a detailed review, it has been found that the surface energy, intermolecular interactions, and interactions of hydrogel adhesion forces are major challenges that contribute to the development of hydrogel. In addition, compared to other hydrogels, nanocellulose hydrogels demonstrated higher potential for drug delivery, 3D cell culture, diagnostics, tissue engineering, tissue therapies and gene therapies. Overall, nanocellulose hydrogel has the potential for commercialization for different biomedical applications.

Keywords: Biomedical applications; Hydrogels; Nano-cellulose; Nanocrystals; Tissue engineering.