A superelastic, biofluid-locking, and degradable dressing for wound healing

Abstract

In medical field, light-weight, superelastic, and super-absorbing aerogels are highly desired for sensitive wounds with persistent exudations. Up to now, superelastic PU porous dressings are commonly employed, which impose environmental concerns both in their preparation and in their pollution after usage. Herein, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) was used to construct hierarchical aerogels via a dual-crosslinking and porogen leaching method. The hierarchical aerogel not only disperses stress at multiple scales, endowing the aerogel with superelasticity, but also deeply absorbs bioliquid through its hierarchical porous surfaces and strong wetting forces deriving from the abundant hydrophilic groups such as hydroxyl and carboxyl groups. Moreover, for practical use, the hierarchical CMC (H-CMC) dressing demonstrates superior absorbency than commercial elastic PU foam both in static and dynamic liquid absorption, faster wound healing than commercial CMC fiber dressing, and can fully degrade both in vivo and in soil. Thus, this research offers a universal approach to design hierarchical wound dressings using bio-based polyelectrolyte, presenting a wound dressing that is both environmentally-friendly and highly comfortable when applied in healing human sensitive injuries.