Stimuli Responsive Bio-Based Hydrogels

Abstract

Hydrogels are substances that are able to imbibe and retain huge quantity of water in them. These are gaining popularity due to their multidisciplinary applications in the biomedical and industrial fields. Hydrogels can be of natural origin or can be synthesised in labs. Natural hydrogels are gaining more interest now a days due to their biocompatibility, non-toxicity, and efficient working. Nature-based hydrogels can be modified physically or chemically to enhance the properties. Recently, bio-hydrogels are finding applications in tissue engineering, protein binding, drug removal, drug delivery, hygiene, wound, dressing, wound healing, and removal of organic substances from waste water as well as removal of dyes and metal ions. Hydrogels are important since they respond to various in vivo and in vitro stimuli such as ionic concentration, pH, temperature, and time of contact. Stimulus respondents are smart devices as they have the ability of adjustment of their phsicochemical characteristics in response to a particular environmental stimulus. Therefore, their efficient utilisation in a particular field can be explored. Stimuli-responsive polymers are getting more and more interest in the fields of biomedical applications due to their behaviour to be triggered by the slight changes in the stimulus. This chapter reviews the scope of bio-based stimuli-sensitive polymeric hydrogels in biomedical applications as they trigger to release of the biomolecule they imbibe due to the slight changes in the body temperature.