Abstract
Recent developments in the area of plant-based hydrogels are introduced, especially those derived from wood as a widely available, multiscale, and hierarchical source of nanomaterials, as well as other cell wall elements. With water being fundamental in a hydrogel, water interactions, hydration, and swelling, all critically important in designing, processing, and achieving the desired properties of sustainable and functional hydrogels, are highlighted. A plant, by itself, is a form of a hydrogel, at least at given states of development, and for this reason phenomena such as fluid transport, diffusion, capillarity, and ionic effects are examined. These aspects are highly relevant not only to plants, especially lignified tissues, but also to the porous structures produced after removal of water (foams, sponges, cryogels, xerogels, and aerogels). Thus, a useful source of critical and comprehensive information is provided regarding the synthesis of hydrogels from plant materials (and especially wood nanostructures), and about the role of water, not only for processing but for developing hydrogel properties and uses.
Highlights
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Recent breakthroughs involve natural polymers such as polysaccharides, proteins (gelatin, silk regarding the synthesis of hydrogels from plant materials, and lipids wood nanostructures), and about the role of water, for processing but for developing hydrogel properties and uses
We introduce and future challenges associated to environmental remediation, the main plant-centered sources of hydrogels, principally wood, sensing, drug delivery, biomedicine and packaging, among and the significance of solubility, capillarity, and diffusion phemany others
Summary
Hydrogels are 3D macromolecular networks that display high water binding and retention. He obtained his M.Sc. in bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Science and Technology (EPFL), Switzerland (2009), and his Ph.D. degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from The University of Melbourne, Australia (2015) His current research interest within BiCMat group includes the formation of structured materials from nano and microparticles, with a focus on the development of supramolecular interactions from biopolymers and bio-based particles. The knowledge that exists in the area of macrofiber networks (paper) is being translated to the field of nanocelluloses.[14] Interestingly, many concepts related to water interactions apply to both scales; with additional considerations arising from the high surface area of the nanocelluloses, scaling factors account for a high density of interfibril connections This puts the associated physics in the realm of colloidal interactions, which demand the use of sophisticated measurement techniques[15] to reveal the role of water, especially pertinent to the synthesis of hydrogels.
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