Fabrication of hydrogels using quantum dots and carbon spheres as crosslinker

Abstract

Abstract Hydrogels, due to its intrinsic biocompatibility and environment friendly nature have attracted great attention in biomedical engineering and industry. The widespread applications of hydrogels frequently require high toughness and sustainable mechanical properties. However, the conventional hydrogels with common crosslinkers have failed to meet the demand. Covalent crosslinkers cannot resist the stress-induced deformation and propagation of cracks and lead to weak load-bearing capacity. Herein, we are introducing carbon spheres based crosslinkers (CSX) having the capability for the formation of physical and chemical bond to overcome the shortcoming. To study the effect of crosslinker, CSX has been incorporated in different types of hydrogels and their mechanical properties have been studied. It has been observed that hydrogels having CSX can effectively dissipate energy to withstand large deformations and increase the toughness. A systematic research has been conducted here to understand the interaction of CSX and polymer backbone.