Sponge-Like Macroporous Hydrogel with Antibacterial and ROS Scavenging Capabilities for Diabetic Wound Regeneration

Hydrogels with soft and wet properties have been intensively investigated for chronic disease tissue repair. Nevertheless, tissue engineering hydrogels containing high water content are often simultaneously suffered from low porous size and low water-resistant capacities, leading to undesirable surgery outcomes. Here, a novel sponge-like macro-porous hydrogel (SM-hydrogel) with stable macro-porous structures and anti-swelling performances is developed via a facile, fast yet robust approach induced by Ti₃ C₂ MXene additives. The MXene-induced SM-hydrogels (80% water content) with 200-300 µm open macropores, demonstrating ideal mass/nutrient infiltration capability at ≈20-fold higher water/blood-transport velocity over that of the nonporous hydrogels. Moreover, the highly strong interactions between MXene and polymer chains endow the SM-hydrogels with excellent anti-swelling capability, promising equilibrium SM-hydrogels with identical macro-porous structures and toughened mechanical performances. The SM-hydrogel with versatile functions such as facilitating mass transport, antibacterial (bacterial viability in (Acrylic acid-co-Methacrylamide dopamine) copolymer-Ti₃ C₂ MXene below 25%), and reactive oxygen species scavenging capacities (96% scavenging ratio at 120 min) synergistically promotes diabetic wound healing (compared with non-porous hydrogels the wound closure rate increased from 39% to 81% within 7 days). Therefore, the durable SM-hydrogels exhibit connective macro-porous structures and bears versatile functions induced by MXene, demonstrating its great potential for wound tissue engineering.