The Design of Rapid Self-Healing Alginate Hydrogel with Dendritic Crosslinking Network

Self-healing alginate hydrogels play important roles in the biological field due to their biocompatibility and ability to recover after cracking. One of the primary targets for researchers in this field is to increase the self-healing speed. Sodium alginate was oxidized, generating aldehyde groups on the chains, which were then crosslinked by poly(amino) amine (PAMAM) via Schiff base reaction. The dendritic structure was introduced to the alginate hydrogel in this work, which was supposed to promote intermolecular interactions and accelerate the self-healing process. Results showed that the hydrogel (ADA-PAMAM) formed a gel within 2.5 min with stable rheological properties. Within 25 min, the hydrogel recovered under room temperature. Furthermore, the aldehyde degree of alginate dialdehyde with a different oxidation degree was characterized through gel permeation chromatograph aligned with multi-angle laser light scattering and ultraviolet (UV) absorption. The chemical structure of the hydrogel was characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and UV-vis spectra. The SEM and laser scanning confocal microscope (CLSM) presented the antibiotic ability of ADA-PAMAM against both S. aureus and E. coli when incubated with 10⁻⁷ CFU microorganism under room temperature for 2 h. This work presented a strategy to promote the self-healing of hydrogel through forming a dendritic dynamic crosslinking network.