Thermo-responsive hydrogel with tunable transition temperature for effective drug release

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels with tunable responsiveness show great potential in the biomedical field. In particular, the wound dressing with biosafety, great mechanical strength, drug loading and sustained releasing is essential for wound closure. Here, a simple strategy is demonstrated for achieving a graphene oxide (GO) enhanced poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) hydrogel (GO@PNIPAAm) with controlled drug release performance. The introduction of GO enhances the compression strength of GO@PNIPAAm 49 times higher than PNIPAAm. By changing the dosage of reacting agents, the transition temperature of GO@PNIPAAm could be tuned from 32.7 °C to 34.8 °C. In addition, the drug release rate of GO@PNIPAAm reaches 99%, the water retention capacity is increased by 18%, and the hydrogel has cytocompatibility. All the results show that GO@PNIPAAm is suitable to be applied as advanced wound dressing.