Formulating Smart All-in-One Chitosan Hydrogel for High Performance Wound Dressing

The poor mechanical and film formation properties of chitosan hydrogel limit its application as a wound dressing. To solve this shortcoming, chitosan-graft-poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAAm) and crosslinked with polyvinyl alcohol/polyvinyl pyrollidone (PVA/PVP) blend polymer is designed to form the thermosensitive hydrogel. After that, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), synthesized by the co-reduction method, are added into the chitosan hydrogel network to provide better antibacterial ability. When the temperature is above 32 °C, the hydrogel showed a decrease in particle size and transmittance, which proved that it is a thermal responsive material. Chitosan hydrogels are evaluated for their thermal properties, mechanical properties, swelling effects, antibacterial properties, and wound healing ability in rats. The results show that the hydrogel has a large number of intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonds and a porous 3D network structure. The swelling ratio is 358.86 ± 23.56% and the degradation ratio is 86.02 ± 2.82% at 21 days. It also has excellent antibacterial properties against Escherichia coli and a much faster wound recovery ability. Therefore, a chitosan hydrogel with excellent physical properties is formulated in this study and has great potential as a smart all-in-one wound dressing for accelerating wound healing.