Development of self-healing vanillin/PEI hydrogels for tissue engineering

Self-healing materials recover mechanical damages to expand the lifetime of the material provided. In this study, self-healing hydrogels have been successfully prepared using a novel and simple technique. Vanillin is a natural monomer, used as a bio-based cross-linker for UV-induced bonding and Schiff-base bonding. Methacrylate-functionalized vanillin (M-VAN) is covalently integrated with the polymer matrix. While M-VAN supports polymer matrix with its vinyl group, its aldehyde functionality helps the formation of dynamic covalent imine bonds via Schiff-base formation. The hydrogel showed excellent self-healing ability overnight under physio-logical conditions without external addition. In addition, the hydrogel surface was modified by collagen and its cell viability was investigated. The prepared scaffolds showed good cell viability of 124% and 163% compared to the control sample. The developed self-healing material reveals that it has possible uses for future biomedical applications and tissue engineering studies due to the self-healing mechanism taking place under ambient conditions.