Biocompatible carboxymethyl cellulose-based super-elastic hierarchical sponge via a novel templating and plasticizing method

Herein, a facile method to fabricate hierarchical super-elastic (SE) sponge using a water-soluble cellulose derivative, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), is reported. The method includes ice templating and porogen leaching steps which facilitate to generate macro-sized pores as well as pore wall structures that can dissipate stress effectively. By controlling the porogen content, the specific surface area and the morphology of the sponges can be tuned. Furthermore, a plasticizing method was used before vacuum drying to reduce the deformation of the inner structure. The derived hierarchical SE CMC sponges exhibit excellent fatigue resistance, fast shape recovery, high-water absorption, biosafeness, and fast degradation. Thus, our strategy provides a novel method for the construction of SE sponges which show great potential in green elastic wound dressing, tissue engineering, and absorbent materials.