Facile fabrication of self-healing carboxymethyl cellulose hydrogels

• We develop a facile method to prepare carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) hydrogels.
• The CMC hydrogels are physically bonded by hydrogen bonds.
• The CMC hydrogels exhibit ∼2.5 MPa of compressive strength.
• The CMC hydrogels exhibit excellent self-healing behaviour of over 80% of healing efficiency.

As a material derived from cellulose, which is abundant in nature, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) has been used as an ingredient to synthesize hydrogels for various applications. The introduction of self-healing properties in CMC hydrogels will expand their service life and scope of application. We report a facile way to fabricate CMC hydrogels with self-healing behaviour. The self-healing CMC hydrogel is achieved by acidifying the CMC paste in citric acid solution. The CMC hydrogel can autonomously self-heal without any external stimulus under ambient temperature, and the healed hydrogels can bear the stretching as demonstrated by macroscopic observation. The hydrogel with ∼2.5 MPa compressive strength exhibits ∼80% of healing efficiency. With these superior properties, the developed CMC hydrogel holds great potential for applications in biomedical and industry fields.

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