Developing high strength, antiseptic and swelling-resistant polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan hydrogels for tissue engineering material

Preparing ultra-strong, biocompatible, antiseptic and swelling-resistant hydrogels for tissue engineering materials remains challenging. Here, polyvinyl alcohol-chitosan composite hydrogels were prepared by the synergetic effect of hydrogen bonding, crystallization, chain entanglement and ionic interactions without the addition of harmful chemicals. Due to the relatively homogenous network and high cross-linking density, the target gel exhibited exciting mechanical properties (tensile strength and toughness were 9.3 MPa and 14.6 MJ/m(3)), excellent antiseptic property and electrical conductivity, together with the swelling-resistant ability (tensile strength at swollen state was 4.3 MPa without obvious volume expansion). We hope that these results will enable the development of tissue engineering materials for commercial applications. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.