Tough chitosan hydrogel based on purified regeneration and alkaline solvent as biomaterials for tissue engineering applications.

The chitosan based on purified regeneration could be dissolved in 6wt% aqueous NaOH without freeze-thawing cycles and acetylation processing, and such a solution system was effective and different from other dissolving methods Upon heating, a tough hydrogel was constructed from the chitosan (purified regeneration) alkaline solution. The results of XRD, TEM, SEM and rheology analysis proved that chitosan easily aggregated in the solution and formed a nanofibers network to gelate at elevated temperature and concentration. The merely chitosan hydrogel had a uniform network structure and its (5wt%) compressive fracture stress could reach 0.2MPa. Furthermore, the hydrogels exhibited excellent biodegradability, blood compatibility and cellular compatibility. Therefore, the tough chitosan hydrogels may have a wide range of applications in biomedicine.