Recent advances in polymer hydrogel nanoarchitectures and applications

Abstract

Polymeric nanocomposite hydrogels (PNHDGs) are water containing cross-linked polymeric hydrogel (HDG) networks combined with nanomaterials forming polymeric HDG nanoarchitectures with multifunctional properties suitable for versatile applications especially in biomedicals, drug delivery systems (DDSs), tissue engineering (TE), and implantable materials because of their inherently high biocompatibility and high water composition, similar to that of the human system. In this paper recent advances in varying biomedical HDG, especially, nanocomposite HDG, conductive HDG, as well as multiple network HDG are presented. When compared with conventional HDG, these advanced HDG nanoarchitectures demonstrate significant enhancement in architecture, mechanical behaviors, and applications while surpassing the factors limiting the efficiency and scope of application of HDG. Therefore, this paper elucidates recently emerging trends in vary approaches of fabricating nanocomposite HDG and applications, especially in biomedicals and pharmaceuticals.

Keywords

• Hydrogels
• Nanocomposite hydrogels
• Biomedicals
• Pharmaceuticals