Abstract
Hydrogels have three-dimensional network structures, high water content, good flexibility, biocompatibility, and stimulation response, which have provided a unique role in many fields such as industry, agriculture, and medical treatment. Poly(vinyl alcohol) PVA hydrogel is one of the oldest composite hydrogels. It has been extensively explored due to its chemical stability, nontoxic, good biocompatibility, biological aging resistance, high water-absorbing capacity, and easy processing. PVA-based hydrogels have been widely investigated in drug carriers, articular cartilage, wound dressings, tissue engineering, and other intelligent materials, such as self-healing and shape-memory materials, supercapacitors, sensors, and other fields. In this paper, the discovery, development, preparation, modification methods, and applications of PVA functionalized hydrogels are reviewed, and their potential applications and future research trends are also prospected.
Highlights
Polymer hydrogel networks are low crosslinking materials, which can be formed by chemical or physical crosslinking methods and form covalent or noncovalent crosslinking points
Compared with electrochemical capacitors using 1 mol/L H2SO4 aqueous solution as an electrolyte, the results showed that the ionic conductivity of the poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel electrolyte was similar to that of the 1 mol/L
The future design of hydrogels should have the following advantages: (1) functionalized hydrogel materials should utilize nontoxic, biodegradable macromolecules, that is, good biocompatibility and biodegradability, and hydrogels can be self-healed to extend their lifecycles; (2) for tissue engineering, the mechanical properties and structure of the hydrogels should be highly matched with the embedded tissues; (3) the injected or implanted hydrogels could be tracked in vivo that further expanding their biomedical applications; (4) development of the multifunctional hydrogels to meet the complex biological conditions in vivo and achieving synergy
Summary
Polymer hydrogel networks are low crosslinking materials, which can be formed by chemical or physical crosslinking methods and form covalent or noncovalent crosslinking points. PVA-based hydrogels are colloidal dispersion with three-dimensional network structures through crosslinking and swelling They have attracted much attention due to their low toxicity, high water absorption, good mechanical properties (i.e., high elastic modulus and high mechanical strength), and good biocompatibility [6, 7]. The gelation mechanism (c.f. Figure 2(a)) of this physical method includes (1) the polymer chain aggregation region and nonaggregation region are formed at the initial stage of gelation, resulting in an network structure due to the function of intramolecular hydrogen bond; (2) when PVA solution was frozen, the movement of molecular chains was weakened, and the contact time between chains became longer while the distance between chains was shortened, 1.
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