In this work, Deng, Wang and co-workers prepared Artemisia argyi oil (AAO)-loaded macroporous antibacterial hydrogels by polymerization of oil-in-water Pickering HIPEs. The HIPEs were stabilized by the synergy of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles (N20) and surfactant Tween 80. The void interconnectivity and pore size of the hydrogels can be readily tailored by varying the concentrations of N20 nanoparticles and Tween 80. The in vitro release of the AAO-loaded hydrogels with different inner morphologies was evaluated and showed controlled release activity. The antibacterial activity of the AAO-loaded hydrogel was evaluated against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. This kind of hydrogel exhibited excellent and long-term antibacterial activity indicating its potential use in biomedical and infection prevention applications.
Macroporous antibacterial hydrogels with tunable pore structures fabricated by using Pickering high internal phase emulsions as templates by Shengwen Zou, Zengjiang Wei, Yang Hu, Yonghong Deng, Zhen Tonga and Chaoyang Wang, Polym. Chem. 2014, 5, 4227-4234.
Julien Nicolas is a web-writer and advisory board member for Polymer Chemistry. He currently works at Univ. Paris-Sud (FR) as a CNRS researcher.
