Accelerating the drug-releasing performance by a flexible zinc–air fuel cell based on a polyacrylamide/cellulose nanofibril (PAM/CNF) hydrogel

Abstract

With the merits of being non-toxic, biocompatible and non-sensitizing, hydrogel wound dressings are considered as the promising candidate to prevent wound infection and accommodate the healing drugs. However, the release process is relatively sluggish and uncontrollable under natural releasing condition. To improve the local release rate in the wound area, an external electrostimulation is applied to accelerate the drug-release performance by a flexible zinc–air fuel cell (ZAFC). In the present study, a polyacrylamide/cellulose nanofibril (PAM/CNF) hydrogel is proposed, which is fabricated using a free radical polymerization method. Benefiting from the optimized porous structure and functional group, the swelling ratio of the PAM/CNF hydrogel reaches 1250%, and it displays a conductivity of 391.24 mS cm⁻¹. Based on the PAM/CNF hydrogel quasi-electrolyte, the maximum power density and current density for the flexible ZAFC are 34.7 mW cm⁻³ and 154.72 mA cm⁻³, respectively. Assisted by the electrostimulation from the ZAFC, the cumulative release rate is ∼30% after 6 h, representing an improvement by ∼1.5 times compared to that attained by natural diffusion release demonstrating the successful design of the flexible ZAFC-powered electrostimulation system.