Thermal-responsive self-healing hydrogel based on hydrophobically modified chitosan and vesicle

High-performance polymer materials with stimulus-responsive, self-healing and controllable features are expected to have diverse applications. In this paper, we report a novel, thermal-switchable self-healing hydrogel which can be obtained simply by mixing the hydrophobically modified chitosan (hm-chitosan) with the thermal-responsive vesicle composed of 5-methyl salicylic acid (5mS) and dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB). Temperature stimuli points to a sol–gel phase transition in the supramolecular hydrogel and such transition can be reversibly performed for several cycles. In particular, the gelation temperature can be easily controlled by varying the ratio of DTAB to 5mS. Aside from the temperature responsive ability, the original feature highlighted in this work is that such a vesicle-based hydrogel exhibits interesting self-healing feature in a matter of seconds through the autonomic reconstruction without the use of healing agent. Thus, hydrogels based on hm-chitosan and functional vesicle may have potential application in a wide range of areas.