Facile fabrication of self-healing carboxymethyl cellulose hydrogels

As a material derived from cellulose, which is abundant in nature, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) has been used as an ingredient to synthesize hydrogels for various applications. The introduction of self-healing properties in CMC hydrogels will expand their service life and scope of application. We report a facile way to fabricate CMC hydrogels with self-healing behaviour. The self-healing CMC hydrogel is achieved by acidifying the CMC paste in citric acid solution. The CMC hydrogel can autonomously self-heal without any external stimulus under ambient temperature, and the healed hydrogels can bear the stretching as demonstrated by macroscopic observation. The hydrogel with similar to 2.5 MPa compressive strength exhibits similar to 80% of healing efficiency. With these superior properties, the developed CMC hydrogel holds great potential for applications in biomedical and industry fields. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.