Construction of chitin/graphene oxide hybrid hydrogels

Graphene oxide (GO), an excellent nanofiller, was incorporated into chitin to construct chitin/GO hybrid hydrogels by cross-linking with epichlorohydrin. The structure of the hybrid hydrogels was investigated by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, wide-angle X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. The results revealed that the hybrid hydrogels possessed a layered porous structure with bi-crosslinked networks, which played an important role in improving their mechanical properties. Compared with pure chitin hydrogels, an increase of 24.7 and 262.7 % in strain and compressive strength, respectively, was achieved with addition of 3.2 wt% GO. Incorporation of this amount of GO in a hybrid hydrogel did not affect the toxicity of chitin towards L02 cells, suggesting good biocompatibility. All these results suggest that chitin/GO hydrogels have potential applications in the field of tissue engineering.