Novel Trends in Hydrogel Development for Biomedical Applications: A Review

Abstract

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.

In Vitro Biocompatibility of Hydrogel Polyvinyl Alcohol/Moringa oleifera Leaf Extract/Graphene Oxide for Wound Dressing

“…Polymers are widely used as a matrix in wound dressing to accelerate wound healing, such as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyurethane, polymethyl methacrylate, and polyvinyl pyrrolidone [ 18 ]. Currently, PVA is one of the oldest and most widely used synthetic polymer hydrogels and has been applied in several advanced biomedical applications, such as wound dressings [ 19 ].…”

Extracellular vesicle-loaded hydrogels for tissue repair and regeneration

“…Synthetic hydrogels are made by crosslinking synthetic hydrophilic polymers, commonly polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyacrylic acid and its derivatives, polylactic acid-hydroxy acetic acid copolymer (PLGA), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and phenoxyethyl methacrylate (PHEMA). Compared with natural polymers, synthetic polymers have specific molecular weights, basic structural units, and can be pre-designed to obtain desired properties, including specific porosity, degradation times, as well as mechanical properties [ 104 ].…”

Recent Implementations of Hydrogel-Based Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (METs) in Sensing Applications

“…Hydrogels are composed of a network of three-dimensional crosslinked polymers that are able to absorb large amounts of liquid [ 13 ]. They have a range of unique properties including swelling behaviour, biocompatibility, non-toxicity, porous structure, and self-healing [ 14 ], which makes them extremely versatile and suitable for improving the stability and sensitivity of the sensor. Hydrogel networks can either be chemically or physically crosslinked, ensuring structural stability during water absorption [ 15 ].…”