Facile preparation of methylcellulose/poly(vinyl alcohol) physical complex hydrogels with tunable thermosensitivity

Novel complex hydrogels of methylcellulose (MC) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with wide-spectrum thermoresponsivity were prepared via physical and mild process. Thermal phase transition of MC/PVA hydrogels exhibited two forms including sol/sol to gel/sol and sol/gel to gel/gel. The phase transition temperature of MC/PVA solution ranged from 38.7 to 60.6 °C and was able to be adjusted by simply changing the feeding ratios of two components. The interior morphology of MC/PVA gels was examined with fluorescence analysis and scanning electron microscopy analysis, which showed that MC was well dispersed in matrix before and after thermally gelling.