pH-sensitive nanocomposite hydrogels scaffold based on polyvinyl imidazole -graphene quantum dots with antibacterial properties for tissue engineering

Hydrogels are a form of 3D porous materials, which consist of polymer chains with either physical or chemical crosslinking. They represent an important class of biomaterials in biotechnology and medicine because many hydrogels exhibit excellent biocompatibility, causing minimal inflammatory responses, thrombosis, and tissue damage1. Hydrogels can also swell with large quantities of water without the dissolution of the polymer due to their hydrophilic but crosslinked structure, thus giving them physical characteristics similar to soft tissues. Hydrogel materials have been used extensively in medicine for applications such as contact lenses, biosensors, linings for artificial implants, and drug delivery devices and tissue engineering2. The pH sensitive hydrogels are extensively used in different fields such as medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, food industry and controlled drug delivery etc3. In this work, we synthesized two series of pH-sensitive nanocomposite hydrogels (PVI/GQDs) based on polyvinyl imidazole (PVI) and N-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs). The first series of nanocomposite hydrogels (PVI/NGQD-1) were synthesized using 1-vinyl imidazole (VI) monomer and N, N′- methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) cross linker with different molar ratios and different amounts of NGQD as a nanofiller. The second series of nanocomposite hydrogels (PVI/NGQD-2) were synthesized similarly only using an imidazolium-based dicationic IL (DIL) as a crosslinker. The compression test showed that the PVI/NGQD-1 hydrogels were more strength than the PVI/NGQD-2 hydrogels. Moreover, the PVI/GQD-1 hydrogels show more antibacterial properties in comparison with the PVI/NGQD-2 hydrogels. The synthesized PVI/GQDs hydrogels were characterized by FT-IR, TGA, XRD, SEM and compression test.

کلیدواژه ها:

Nanocomposite hydrogels ، N-Doped graphene quantum dot ، 1-Vinylimidazole ، Tissue engineering ، Antibacterial properties