Abstract
A hydrogel is a three-dimensional polymer network with high water content and has been attractive for many biomedical applications due to its excellent biocompatibility. However, classic hydrogels are mechanically weak and unsuitable for most physiological load-bearing situations. Thus, the development of tough hydrogels used in the biomedical field becomes critical. This work reviews various strategies to fabricate tough hydrogels with the introduction of non-covalent bonds and the construction of stretchable polymer networks and interpenetrated networks, such as the so-called double-network hydrogel. Additionally, the design of tough hydrogels for tissue adhesive, tissue engineering, and soft actuators is reviewed.
Highlights
Hydrogels are an important class of biomaterial, consisting of a three-dimensional (3D) polymer network with water content as high as over 99.9 wt %
Hydrogels have been utilized in various biomedical applications, functioning as tissue adhesives [1,2], tissue engineering scaffolds [3,4], drug delivery carriers [5,6], biosensors [7,8], and soft robotic and electronic components [9,10,11,12]
We firstly introduce the tough hydrogels used for tissue adhesives
Summary
Hydrogels are an important class of biomaterial, consisting of a three-dimensional (3D) polymer network with water content as high as over 99.9 wt %. Hydrogels have been utilized in various biomedical applications, functioning as tissue adhesives [1,2], tissue engineering scaffolds [3,4], drug delivery carriers [5,6], biosensors [7,8], and soft robotic and electronic components [9,10,11,12]. We review tough hydrogel-based actuators that can respondto tovarious variousstimuli stimuli andperform performrepeated repeatedbending bendingmovements. Both homogeneous homogeneous and and bi-layered bi-layered designs and designs are are introduced. Blue and red long lines: polymer backbones; non-covalent bonds, and (e) double-network (DN) hydrogel.
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