Nowadays, there are still numerous challenges for well-known biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering (TE), wound healing and controlled drug delivery, which must be faced and solved. Hydrogels have been proposed as excellent candidates for these applications, as they have promising properties for the mentioned applications, including biocompatibility, biodegradability, great absorption capacity and tunable mechanical properties. However, depending on the material or the manufacturing method, the resulting hydrogel may not be up to the specific task for which it is designed, thus there are different approaches proposed to enhance hydrogel performance for the requirements of the application in question. The main purpose of this review article was to summarize the most recent trends of hydrogel technology, going through the most used polymeric materials and the most popular hydrogel synthesis methods in recent years, including different strategies of enhancing hydrogels’ properties, such as cross-linking and the manufacture of composite hydrogels. In addition, the secondary objective of this review was to briefly discuss other novel applications of hydrogels that have been proposed in the past few years which have drawn a lot of attention.

Biomaterials have been used since ancient times. However, it was not until the late 1960s when their development prospered, increasing the research on them. In recent years, the study of biomaterials has focused mainly on tissue regeneration, requiring a biomaterial that can support cells during their growth and fulfill the function of the replaced tissue until its regeneration. These materials, called scaffolds, have been developed with a wide variety of materials and processes, with the polymer ones being the most advanced. For this reason, the need arises for a review that compiles the techniques most used in the development of polymer-based scaffolds. This review has focused on three of the most used techniques: freeze-drying, electrospinning and 3D printing, focusing on current and future trends. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of each of them have been compared.

Currently, gelatin-based films are regarded as promising alternatives to non-environmentally friendly plastic films for food packaging. Nevertheless, although they have great biodegradability, their weak mechanical properties and high solubility limit their applications. In this way, the use of nanoparticles, such as FexOy-NPs, could improve the properties of gelatin-based biofilms. Thus, the main objective of this work was to include different concentrations of FexOy-NPs (0.25 and 1.0%) manufactured by green synthesis (GS) and chemical synthesis (CS) into gelatin-based biofilms in order to improve their properties. The results show that FexOy-NPs can be distributed throughout the biofilm, although with a greater concentration on the upper surface. In addition, the incorporation of FexOy-NPs into the biofilms improves their physicochemical, mechanical, morphological, and biological properties. Thus, it is possible to achieve suitable gelatin-based biofilms, which can be used in several applications, such as functional packaging in the food industry, antioxidant and antimicrobial additives in biomedical and pharmaceutical biomaterials, and in agricultural pesticides.

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Regenerative medicine is increasingly focused on the development of biomaterials that facilitate cell adhesion and proliferation through the use of natural polymers, which have better biocompatibility and biodegradability. In this way, the use of hydrogels has been considered as a potential option for tissue engineering due to their physical and chemical characteristics. However, few studies associate the raw materials properties and processing conditions with the final characteristics of hydrogels, which could condition their use as scaffolds for tissue engineering. In this context, the main objective of this work was the evaluation of type I collagen as raw material for the elaboration of hydrogels. In addition, gelation time, pH and temperature were evaluated as the most influential variables in the hydrogel processing method by rheological (time, strain and frequency sweep tests) and microstructural (Cryo-SEM) measurements. The results indicate that it is possible to obtain collagen hydrogels with adequate rheological and microstructural characteristics by selecting optimal processing conditions. However, further studies are necessary to assess their suitability for cell accommodation and growth.