Functional Chitosan-Interpenetrating Networks: Next Generation Super-Adsorbents for Biomedical Applications

Chitosan-based interpenetrating networks (IPNs) have become highly attractive as advanced super-adsorbent materials due to their ability to combine a high density of functional adsorption sites with enhanced structural stability under physiological conditions. While chitosan offers intrinsic advantages such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and chemical functionality, its adsorption efficiency, mechanical strength, and long-term stability may offer limited performance in complex biomedical environments. The formation of interpenetrating networks provides an effective strategy to overcome these limitations by interlacing chitosan with other polymer networks, resulting in a synergistic enhancement of physicochemical and adsorption properties. The formation of chitosan-based IPNs offers tunable control of network structure, porosity, swelling behaviour, and adsorption kinetics, which in turn results in enhanced retention and controlled interaction of drugs, biomolecules, toxins, and other therapeutic agents. Variations in polymer composition, crosslinking density, and network interactions further facilitate the controlled tailoring of adsorption properties for targeted biomedical applications. This review presents a comprehensive and critical assessment of recent progress in the fabrication, functionalization, and structure-property relationships of chitosan-based IPNs, with a main emphasis on their super-adsorbent behaviour. Furthermore, this review highlights key biomedical applications of IPNs, including controlled drug delivery, wound healing systems, tissue engineering scaffolds, detoxification platforms, and biosensing devices. Current issues in scalability, stability, and clinical translation are discussed, as well as future perspectives that highlight the potential of chitosan-based IPNs as high-performance, sustainable super-adsorbent materials for advanced biomedical technologies.