Anisotropic wood-hydrogel composites: Extending mechanical properties of wood towards soft materials’ applications
Abstract
Delignified wood (DW) offers a versatile platform for the manufacturing of composites, with material properties ranging from stiff to soft and flexible by preserving the preferential fiber directionality of natural wood through a structure-retaining production process. This study presents a facile method for fabricating anisotropic and mechanically tunable DW-hydrogel composites. These composites were produced by infiltrating delignified spruce wood with an aqueous gelatin solution followed by chemical crosslinking. The mechanical properties could be modulated across a broad strength and stiffness range (1.2–18.3 MPa and 170–1455 MPa, respectively) by varying the crosslinking time. The diffusion-led crosslinking further allowed to manufacture mechanically graded structures. The resulting uniaxial, tubular structure of the anisotropic DW-hydrogel composite enabled the alignment of murine fibroblasts in vitro, which could be utilized in future studies on potential applications in tissue engineering. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000630569Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Materials Today BioVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
ElsevierSubject
Delignified wood; Composites; Hydrogel; Soft materials; Mechanical gradient; Cell alignmentOrganisational unit
03917 - Burgert, Ingo / Burgert, Ingo
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Is part of: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000673818
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