Oriented Polysaccharide Bigels From Interfacial Crosslinking

Bigels consist of a relatively new group of soft materials, developed using two or more networks to achieve synergistic multifunctionalities. Covalently crosslinked bi-hydrogels from two different polysaccharides were designed by employing a two-step process of crosslinking and drying. The individual hydrogels prepared by crosslinking with divinyl sulphone (DVS), were kept together and left to dry. The evaporation preceded the pendant DVS groups on the surface of the two hydrogels to react and bind. The finally obtained fused xerogel can be stored for a long time and used on demand as an uniaxially swelling bigel. We envision the potential use of such polysaccharide hydrogels to prepare cell-gel constructs or structurally compliant tissues as sensors.