Cellulose hydrogel with tunable shape and mechanical properties: From rigid cylinder to soft scaffold

Cellulose hydrogel from aqueous solution of lithium bromide demonstrated excellent tunability of mechanical property and shape. A series of compression tests showed that cellulose hydrogel covered a wide range of mechanical property, where the compressive Young's modulus was controllable from 30 kPa to 1.3 MPa by changing the initial concentration of cellulose solution. Meanwhile, the diameter of the building block of gel, namely nano-fibrous cellulose, was constant at 15-20 nm irrelevant of the initial concentration of cellulose solution. Moreover, thanks to the biocompatibility of cellulose, the cultivation of cartilage tissue was successful in the micro-porous sponge-like cellulose hydrogel prepared by salt-leaching process. These findings show that this environmentally-benign versatile gel offers a new substrate for the biomaterial-based nanomaterial in biomedical applications.