Tondera, C., Akbar, T.F., Thomas, A.K. et al. (5 more authors) (2019) Highly conductive, stretchable, and cell‐adhesive hydrogel by nanoclay doping. Small, 15 (27). ISSN 1613-6810
Abstract
Electrically conductive materials that mimic physical and biological properties of tissues are urgently required for seamless brain–machine interfaces. Here, a multinetwork hydrogel combining electrical conductivity of 26 S m−1, stretchability of 800%, and tissue‐like elastic modulus of 15 kPa with mimicry of the extracellular matrix is reported. Engineering this unique set of properties is enabled by a novel in‐scaffold polymerization approach. Colloidal hydrogels of the nanoclay Laponite are employed as supports for the assembly of secondary polymer networks. Laponite dramatically increases the conductivity of in‐scaffold polymerized poly(ethylene‐3,4‐diethoxy thiophene) in the absence of other dopants, while preserving excellent stretchability. The scaffold is coated with a layer containing adhesive peptide and polysaccharide dextran sulfate supporting the attachment, proliferation, and neuronal differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells directly on the surface of conductive hydrogels. Due to its compatibility with simple extrusion printing, this material promises to enable tissue‐mimetic neurostimulating electrodes.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | 3D printing; bioelectronics; conductive polymers; induced pluripotent stem cells; interpenetrating network |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 11 Oct 2019 09:41 |
Last Modified: | 11 Oct 2019 09:41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/smll.201901406 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:152006 |