Tough and Self‐Recoverable Thin Hydrogel Membranes for Biological Applications |
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| Authors: | Ya Nan Ye Martin Frauenlob Lei Wang Masumi Tsuda Tao Lin Sun Kunpeng Cui Riku Takahashi Hui Jie Zhang Tasuku Nakajima Takayuki Nonoyama Takayuki Kurokawa Shinya Tanaka Jian Ping Gong |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan;2. Department of Cancer Pathology, Hokkaido University Faculty of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan;3. Global Institution for Collaborative Research and Education (GI‐CoRE), Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan;4. Faculty of Advanced Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan |
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| Abstract: | Tough and self‐recoverable hydrogel membranes with micrometer‐scale thickness are promising for biomedical applications, which, however, rarely be realized due to the intrinsic brittleness of hydrogels. In this work, for the first time, by combing noncovalent DN strategy and spin‐coating method, we successfully fabricated thin (thickness: 5–100 µm), yet tough (work of extension at fracture: 105–107 J m?3) and 100% self‐recoverable hydrogel membranes with high water content (62–97 wt%) in large size (≈100 cm2). Amphiphilic triblock copolymers, which form physical gels by self‐assembly, were used for the first network. Linear polymers that physically associate with the hydrophilic midblocks of the first network, were chosen for the second network. The inter‐network associations serve as reversible sacrificial bonds that impart toughness and self‐recovery properties on the hydrogel membranes. The excellent mechanical properties of these obtained tough and thin gel membranes are comparable, or even superior to many biological membranes. The in vitro and in vivo tests show that these hydrogel membranes are biocompatible, and postoperative nonadhesive to neighboring organs. The excellent mechanical and biocompatible properties make these thin hydrogel membranes potentially suitable for use as biological or postoperative antiadhesive membranes. |
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| Keywords: | antiadhesive membranes biocompatibility biological membranes self‐recovery tough and thin hydrogel membranes |
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