Wound Healings Based on Self-Healing Hydrogels: Goals, Materials, Mechanisms, and Quality Control

Wound healing is very important due to the importance of the skin as a protective barrier of the body against external pathogens, and for this purpose, the design of suitable wound dressings has always been considered. Traditional dressings such as gauze and bandages are not suitable options for wounds due to the need for constant replacement and causing pain, as well as not having sufficient drainage. Therefore, the use of wound healing based on self-healing hydrogels can be very helpful. These wound dressings repair themselves in case of damage and are superior to traditional dressings due to the absence of secondary damage when changing, being hydrophilic, similar to living tissue, having biomolecules and active substances, and mechanical durability. In this research, firstly, the types of natural polymers used in this type of wound dressings, such as sodium alginate, chitosan, gelatin, and hyaluronic acid, as well as synthetic polymers such as polyvinyl alcohol, polyacrylamide, and polyethylene glycol have been studied. Then, the types of wound dressings based on this type of hydrogels, such as antiseptic dressings, gentle cell/drug carriers, self-adapting smart materials on wounds of different sizes and sticky and durable hydrogels have been described. Various self-healing mechanisms include chemical covalent cross-linking (acyl hydrazone bonds, disulfide bonds, imine bonds, reversible Diels-Alder bonds, phenyl boronate complexes, and reversible radical reactions) and physical non-covalent cross-linking (hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic aggregation, host-guest interactions, and π-π stacking) as well as methods used to evaluate self-healing properties such as gelling properties, cut- heal properties and tensile properties, the final part of this study.

کلیدواژه ها:

Wound healing ، self-healing hydrogels ، polymers ، covalent cross-linking ، non-covalent cross-linking