Oxygen-generating materials and their biomedical applications: a review

Oxygen and reactive oxygen species (ROS), as indispensable small molecular substances in the basic metabolism of life, have become the key to the success of implantable medical materials, and their importance cannot be overstated. Either improving the hypoxia environment in vivo to avoid tissue damage or using the ROS to selectively kill cells are the strategies adopted in the actual biomedical applications. Therefore, it is crucial to control the transfer of oxygen and the conversion of ROS. In this review, we summarize the common oxygen sources and divide them into inorganic sources, biological sources and organic oxygen sources. For the carriers that are used for loading of the oxygen sources and controlling the behavior of oxygen generation and active oxygen conversion, we classify and explain the respective mechanisms and functions of inorganic materials, natural and synthetic polymers. Moreover, by analyzing the current biomedical applications, we describe the challenges and prospects of oxygen-generating materials in the last section.