Design of hyaluronan-based dopant for conductive and resorbable PEDOT ink

Conformable biocompatible conductive materials are increasingly sought for the development of bioelectronics. If additionally resorbable, they could serve for the design of transient implantable electronic devices, opening the way to new healthcare applications. Hyaluronan (HA) derivatives including sulfate and aminophenylboronic acid (PBA) groups (HAS-PBA) were therefore designed to serve as dopants of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy)thiophene (PEDOT). The optimized HA sulfation protocol allowed good control on polymer sulfation degree while mini-mizing polymer chain degradation. Sulfated HA was shown to be degradable in physiological conditions. A synergy was observed between the sulfate negative charges and the PBA aromatic groups promoting hydrophobic interactions and pi-stacking between PEDOT and HAS-PBA, to boost the material conductivity that reached 1.6 +/- 0.2 S/cm in physiological conditions. Moreover the PEDOT:HAS-PBA material was not cytotoxic and could be formulated for easy processing by inkjet printing, appearing as promising candidate for the design of soft transient electronics for in vivo applications.

Automated summary

Conformable and biocompatible conductive materials are in high demand for the development of bioelectronics. This study designs hyaluronan derivatives as dopants for poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy)thiophene and demonstrates their potential as transient implantable electronic devices. By optimizing the sulfation protocol, the researchers achieved good control over the polymer sulfation degree while minimizing chain degradation. The resulting material showed excellent conductivity in physiological conditions and was non-cytotoxic, making it a promising candidate for in vivo applications such as inkjet printing.