Hydrogel transformed from sandcastle-worm-inspired powder for adhering wet adipose surfaces

Normally, hydrogel adhesives do not perform well on adipose matters that are covered with bodily fluids. Besides, the maintenance of high extensibility and self-healing ability in fully swollen state still remains challenging. Based on these concerns, we reported a sandcastle-worm-inspired powder, which was made of tannic acid-functionalized cellulose nanofiber (TA-CNF), polyacrylic acid (PAA) and polyethyleneimine (PEI). The obtained powder can rapidly absorb diverse bodily fluids and transform into a hydrogel, displaying fast (＜3 s), self-strengthening and repeatable wet adhesion to adipose tissues. Due to the dense physically cross-linked network, the formed hydrogel still showed excellent extensibility (∼14 times) and self-healing ability after being immersed in water. Moreover, excellent hemostasis, antibacterial ability and biocompatibility make it suitable for numerous biomedical applications. With combined advantages of powders and hydrogels, such as good adaptability to irregular sites, efficient drug loading capacity and tissue affinity, the sandcastle-worm-inspired powder offers significant promise as tissue adhesive and repair materials. This work may open new avenues for designing high-performance bioadhesives with efficient and robust wet adhesiveness to adipose tissues.