Preparation and properties of a photocrosslinked MCl n -doped PDMA- g-PSMA hydrogel

Zhaocong Chen; Hongyan Wu; Jialei Fei; Qinghua Li; Ruian Ni; Yanzhao Qiu; Danning Yang; Lu Yu

doi:10.1039/d2ra07079k

Preparation and properties of a photocrosslinked MCl _n -doped PDMA- g-PSMA hydrogel

RSC Adv. 2023 Jan 18;13(4):2649-2662. doi: 10.1039/d2ra07079k. eCollection 2023 Jan 11.

Authors

Zhaocong Chen¹, Hongyan Wu², Jialei Fei², Qinghua Li², Ruian Ni², Yanzhao Qiu², Danning Yang², Lu Yu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology Nanjing 210044 PR China.
² Institute of Advanced Materials and Flexible Electronics (IAMFE), School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology Nanjing 210044 PR China wuhy2009@nuist.edu.cn.

Abstract

To treat damaged joint areas, photocrosslinked hydrophobically associating PDMA-g-PSMA hydrogels can act as mild and easily regulated materials due to their rich pore structure, which have been widely applied in articular cartilage replacement research. In this study, the effects of ADS-MCl _n (ADS-NaCl, ADS-MgCl₂ and ADS-CaCl₂) doping systems on the micro morphology, mechanical, self-healing, and friction properties and cytotoxicity of PDMA-g-PSMA hydrogels were studied. The results showed that the solubilization behavior of the ADS-MCl _n ionic micelles affected the hydrophobic association stability, thereby changing the toughness, self-healing and friction properties of the hydrogel. Ca²⁺-doping resulted in the crystallization and precipitation of the anionic surfactants, destroying the solubilization ability of the ionic micelles for the hydrophobic units, and thus hydrogels with high hardness, low toughness and no self-healing function were obtained. Doping with Na⁺ greatly improved the dissolving power of the ADS micelles for SMA, yielding PDMA-g-PSMA hydrogels with good mechanical strength and good self-healing ability. However, in this case, a drawback is that the Na⁺-doped system will lose its components during the swelling process, leading to the degradation of its self-healing performance. Interestingly, Mg²⁺ doping resulted in the formation of highly stable ADS micellar aggregates, and then PDMA-g-PSMA hydrogels with a lower friction coefficient (0.023), less wear (35.0 mg), higher elongation at break and 100% self-healing efficiency were obtained. The hydrogel products obtained from the three doping systems all exhibited good biocompatibility. Our research provides important guidelines for the design and preparation of anti-friction artificial articular cartilage.