Tunable, conductive, self-healing, adhesive and injectable hydrogels for bioelectronics and tissue regeneration applications

J Mater Chem B. 2021 Aug 21;9(31):6260-6270. doi: 10.1039/d1tb01075a. Epub 2021 Aug 2.

Abstract

Conductive hydrogels are attracting considerable interest in view of their potential in a wide range of applications that include healthcare and electronics. Such hydrogels are generally incorporated with conductive materials/polymers. Herein, we present a series of conductive hydrogels (Ch-CMC-PDA), prepared with no additional conductive material. The hydrogels were synthesized using a combination of chitosan, cellulose (CMC) and dopamine (DA). The conductivity (0.01-3.4 × 10-3 S cm-1) in these gels is attributed to ionic conductivity. Very few conductive hydrogels are endowed with additional properties like injectability, adhesiveness and self-healing, which would help to widen their scope for applications. While the dynamic Schiff base coupling in our hydrogels facilitated self-healing and injectable properties, polydopamine imparted tissue adhesiveness. The porosity, rheological, mechanical and conductive properties of the hydrogels are regulated by the CMC-dialdehyde-polydopamine (CMC-D-PDA) content. The hydrogel was evaluated in various bioelectronics applications like ECG monitoring and triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG). The ability of the hydrogel to support cell growth and serve as a template for tissue regeneration was confirmed using in vitro and in vivo studies. In summary, the integration of such remarkable features in the ionic-conductive hydrogel would enable its usage in bioelectronics and biomedical applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bioelectric Energy Sources*
  • Cellulose / chemistry
  • Chitosan / chemistry
  • Dopamine / chemistry
  • Electric Conductivity
  • Humans
  • Hydrogels / chemical synthesis
  • Hydrogels / chemistry*
  • Materials Testing
  • Molecular Structure
  • Tissue Adhesives
  • Tissue Engineering*

Substances

  • Hydrogels
  • Tissue Adhesives
  • Cellulose
  • Chitosan
  • Dopamine