A high-strength, toughness, self-recovery hydrogel for potential osteochondral repair

Abstract

Many load-bearing tissues, such as osteochondral and meniscus, show high strength, toughness and rapid recovery. However, incorporating these mechanical properties into similar biomimetic synthetic biomaterials is a fundamental challenge. Here, we demonstrate a strong, tough and self-recovery hydrogel employing double network (DN) strategy and multiple dynamic interactions (such as metal coordination, hydrogen bond, etc.). The hybrid DN hydrogel exhibited remarkable compressive strength of 3.74 MPa, elongation of 418.92%, fracture energy of 9.41 kJ·m−2, excellent cytocompatibility and self-recovery, so it has a great application prospect in osteochondral repair.