Novel chitosan hydrogels reinforced by silver nanoparticles with ultrahigh mechanical and high antibacterial properties for accelerating wound healing

Poor mechanical properties of chitosan hydrogels limit their applications as the wound dressing. To overcome this drawback, we abandoned the traditional glacial acetic acid method but adopted a LiOH/urea solvent system to synthesize chitosan hydrogel. Then reductive Ag nanoparticles were integrated into the chitosan hydrogel networks, aiming at reinforcing the mechanical properties and improving the antibacterial properties of chitosan hydrogel....