New hydrogel achieves 96% self-repair in 1 minute

[Chinese Packaging Network News] Hefei University of Technology announced that the school researchers successfully designed a new type of hydrogel that can achieve 96% self-repair within 1 minute. Relevant results were published in the internationally renowned comprehensive chemical journal "Chemistry" on October 12, 2017.

According to reports, this high-performance bionic intelligent nanocomposite hydrogel, which can be quickly and efficiently self-repaired, is characterized by its versatility and excellent mechanical properties, and it has broad application prospects.

When the biological tissue is damaged by the outside world, it recovers its original function and structure through self-repair of the cell or tissue. As a soft and highly hydrous material, hydrogels are widely used in many fields such as sensing and detection, drug release, actuators and tissue engineering. Self-repairing performance not only prolongs their service life, but also significantly improves their use. safety.

Hydrogel materials synthesized by a method that introduces a weak interaction force such as a repair agent, a dynamic or reversible covalent or non-covalent interaction force in the internal structure of the gel network, even with the aid of external stimuli such as heat and acid Self-repairing processes often take hours or even more than 24 hours. At the same time, the introduction of weak interaction forces in the network structure to achieve self-healing is often accompanied by a decrease in the mechanical properties of the material that affects its use.

Hefei University of Technology College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering collaborated with the relevant research group of the Institute of Colloids and Interfaces of the Max Planck Institute of Technology and Prof. Huai Ping from the Prof. Huaiping group to propose a combination of nanocomposite hydrogels and coordination bonds to build high-performance materials. New strategy.

Researchers have used monodispersed gold nanoparticles as a crosslinker in the three-dimensional network structure of hydrogels. Using the excellent photothermal properties of gold nanoparticles and the dynamic instability of coordination bonds at high temperatures, successful nanocomposite hydration has been achieved. The self-healing performance of rubber has been greatly improved.

The experimental results show that the new material can achieve 96% self-repair within 1 minute under the induction of near-infrared light with a wavelength of 808 nanometers. At the same time, the biosafety evaluation results of the research group on the gel indicate that the material has good injectability and biocompatibility, and can be used as a drug carrier loaded anticancer drug under controlled release in near-infrared light.