Injectable Electroactive Hydrogels Formed via Host–Guest Interactions (original) (raw)

Injectable conducting hydrogels (ICHs) are promising conductive materials in biomedicine and bioengineering fields. However, the synthesis of ICHs in previous work involved chemical cross-linking, and this may result in biocompatibility problems of the hydrogels. We present the successful synthesis of ICHs via noncovalent host−guest interactions, avoiding the side effect of covalent chemical crosslinking. The ICHs are based on the γ-cyclodextrin dimer as the host molecule and tetraaniline and poly(ethylene glycol) as the guests in a synthetic well-defined hydrophilic copolymer. The sol−gel transition mechanism of the in situ hydrogel is thoroughly investigated. This novel synthesis approach of ICHs via supramolecular chemistry will lead to various new biomedical applications for conducting polymers.