Characterization of hybrid hydrogels combining natural polymers

ABSTRACT Hydrogels have emerged as an important field of study in biomedical engineering, biomaterials research and soft tissue modeling due to their versatility and customizable structures. They are three-dimensional networks capable of absorbing significant amounts of water and can be chemically or physically bonded, rendering them insoluble. The unique properties of hydrogels, such as excellent biocompatibility, degradation abilities, and ability to form chemical bonds between macromolecules, make them valuable in a variety of applications. One of the main applications of hydrogels is tissue engineering, where they are used in implantation, surgical procedures, targeted drug delivery and tissue regeneration. Hydrogels can act as scaffolds to mimic the properties of natural tissues, including mechanical strength, degradation properties, gel transformation, and swelling. Crosslinking hydrogels with other polymers, both natural and synthetic, allows their degradation rate to be controlled. Composite hydrogels or biohybrid gels offer advantages such as consistent properties between batches and a high degree of control in the manufacturing process. Using different types of polymers, researchers can fine-tune the chemical and physical properties of the resulting hydrogel, which is crucial for certain biomedical applications such as drug delivery, biocompatibility, and mechanical stability. In this study, our aim is to make hybrid hydrogel scaffolds more suitable for biomedical applications, which can show the healing effect of adding natural polymers to the scaffold structure. Our results revealed that the hybrid hydrogel obtained by chemically linking gelatin polymer chains to PEG polymers during crosslinking via UV light provides more advantageous properties in the final hydrogel structure, such as better durability and pore sizes for future cell placement in tissue engineering applications.