Laponite nanoparticle-crosslinked carboxymethyl cellulose-based injectable hydrogels with efficient underwater-specific adhesion for rapid hemostasis

Tissue adhesives have attracted intense and increasing interest due to their multiple biomedical applications. Despite the rapid development of adhesive hydrogels, huge challenges remain for materials that can ensure strong adhesion and seal hemostasis in aqueous and blood environments. To address this issue, we have developed an innovative design of PAA-based coacervate hydrogel with strong wet adhesion capability through a simple mixture of PAA copolymers with oxidized-carboxymethylcellulose (OCMC), and tannic acid (TA) as the main components, and structurally enhanced with natural clays (Laponite XLG). The absorbed TA provides solid adhesion to dry and wet substrates via multiple interactions, which endows the XLG-enhanced coacervate with the desired underwater adhesive strength. More importantly, the dielectric constant is introduced to evaluate the polarity of the tested samples, which may be used as guidance for the design of mussel-inspired adhesives with even better underwater adhesive properties. In vivo hemorrhage experiments further confirmed that the hydrogel adhesive dramatically shortened the hemostatic time to tens of seconds. Overall, the persistent adhesion and acceptable cytocompatibility of the hydrogel nanocomposite make it a promising alternative suture-free approach for rapid hemostasis at different length scales and is expected to be extended to clinical application for other organ injuries.