Gelatin-Based Hydrogels

• Physical crosslinking

Gelatin-based hydrogels can be readily produced via physical crosslinking like cooling and self-assembly. They result from molecular aggregations and conformational changes from an arbitrary coil to a triple helix at a particular concentration and low temperature of below 30-35 ℃.

• Chemical crosslinking

Chemical crosslinking is the most common method for gelatin-based hydrogel preparation. Chemical crosslinking reagents may be distinguished between “non-zero” (connecting amine residues covalently) and “zero-length” (connecting carboxylic acid with amine residues covalently).

• Enzymatic crosslinking

Enzymatic crosslinking has gained a lot of interest in the creation of in situ forming gelatin-based hydrogels because it can be employed under mild physiological circumstances with benign reaction conditions for tissues/cells, excellent site-specificity, and no side effects.

• Photopolymerization

Photopolymerization occurs in the presence of UV or visible light and a photoinitiator. This method allows gelatin-based hydrogels to be formed in situ without chemical crosslinking reagents, and enables the required hydrogel shape at speedy curing rates.

• Radiation crosslinking

Radiation crosslinking is an environmentally friendly and commonly used method for preparing gelatin-based hydrogels for. It does not change the chemical structure of the gelatin matrix while maintaining its biocompatibility and sterilization impacts.

• Others

Several other preparation methods are employed to obtain gelatin-based hydrogels in the required morphology and shapes, which include photolithography, microfluidic, and micro-molding methods.