A robust pathway to electrically conductive hemicellulose hydrogels with high and controllable swelling behavior

A robust pathway to synthesize electrically conductive hemicellulose hydrogels (ECHHs) based on O-acetyl-galactoglucomannan (AcGGM) and conductive aniline tetramer (AT) is presented. These ECHHs were obtained by functionalizing carboxylated AcGGM with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and subsequently covalently immobilizing AT onto GMA. Hydrogel swelling ratios (SRs) were regulated by the degree of substitution (DS) of the carboxylated AcGGM, the maximum varied as follows: SRDS=1.14 < SRDS=0.60 < SRDS=0.24. The SR can also be tuned from 548% to 228% by changing the AT contents from 10% (w/w) to 40% (w/w) while simultaneously altering conductivities from 2.93 × 10−8 to 1.12 × 10−6 S/cm. Free-standing ECHHs with tunable conductivity and degree of swelling, as presented herein, have a broad potential for biomedical applications.