Rapid Fabrication of Composite Hydrogel Microfibers for Weavable and Sustainable Antibacterial Applications

Microbial infections continue to pose a serious threat to human health, thus calling attention to the development of new materials with better antibacterial applications. Here we report a microfluidic approach to fabricate core-shell GO-AgNPs/BC (graphene oxide-silver nanoparticles/bacterial cellulose) hydrogel microfibers with controlled-releasing and long-lasting antibacterial performance. Meters of the composite microfibers can be produced in 1 min by using a homemade microfluidic wet-spinning device. The as-prepared microfibers exhibit well-controlled morphological features at the nanoscale and excellent mechanical properties. We have demonstrated that the composite microfibers can effectively sterilize both Gram positive and negative bacterial strains, while remaining friendly to normal mammalian cells. This flexible approach of synthesizing core shell composite microfibers promises important biomedical applications including materials science, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.