Photothermal-Responsive Multifunctional Hydrogels as Integrated Smart Carriers for Antibiotic Controlled Release and...

The overuse of antibiotics has led to an increasingly severe problem of bacterial resistance, and how to effectively deal with antibiotic residues in the environment has become an urgent problem. Based on the unique three-dimensional porous structure and excellent adsorption performance of hydrogel materials, this study proposed a collaborative strategy of "adsorption-reuse", which provided a new idea for solving antibiotic pollution and curbing the spread of drug resistance. We successfully constructed photothermal-responsive multifunctional P(AM-NIPAM)/BP-Au hydrogel by combining gold nanoparticle-modified black phosphorus nanosheets (BP-Au) with poly(acrylamide-co-N-isopropylacrylamide), which effectively adsorbed aureomycin (CTC) from wastewater. The experimental and theoretical results showed that the as-obtained hydrogel achieved synergistic antibacterial effects through photothermal effects and temperature-controlled CTC drug release under 808 nm near-infrared light. In vitro experiments showed that this hydrogel has a significant antibacterial effect against high concentrations (10⁷ CFU·mL^-1) of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). When it was used as wound dressings for the treatment of wound infections, the hydrogel significantly accelerated the healing of infected wounds and promoted the regeneration of epithelial tissues. The constructed hydrogel system can not only be widely used in wound infection treatment but also provides a new method for the control of antibiotic pollution.