Controllable synthesis of novel hydrogel nanocomposites and their applications

Abstract

Hydrogel nanocomposites are hydrogels with inorganic nanoparticles loading in 3D polymeric networks. They combine a range of physical, chemical and biological functions of inorganic nanoparticles with hydrogels. More importantly, the synergy effects can be obtained by controlling the interactions between nanoparticles and polymer chains. As a result, hydrogel nanocomposites can be adapted to more complex practical conditions and to meet the requirements of more diverse applications. This paper reviews the design ideas of controllable synthesis of the novel hydrogel nanocomposites and their applications in the fields of environment protection, energy exploitation, biomedicine and so on. The future development about hydrogel nanocomposites is also proposed here.