Bacterial Cellulose-Based Bandages with Integrated Antibacteria and Electrical Stimulation for Advanced Wound Management

Bandages for daily wounds are the most common medical supplies, but there are still ingrained defects in their appearance, comfort, functions, as well as environmental pollution. Here, novel bandages based on bacterial cellulose (BC) membrane for wound monitoring and advanced wound management are developed. The BC membrane is combined with silver nanowires (AgNWs) by using vacuum filtration method to achieve transparent, ultrathin (approximate to 7 mu m), breathable (389.98-547.79 g m-2 d-1), and sandwich-structured BC/AgNWs bandages with superior mechanical properties (108.45-202.35 MPa), antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, biocompatibility, and conductivity (9.8 x 103-2.0 x 105 S m-1). Significantly, the BC/AgNWs bandage is used in the electrical stimulation (direct current, 600 microamperes for 1 h every other day) treatment of full-thickness skin defect in rats, which obviously promotes wound healing by increasing the secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The BC bandage is used for monitoring wounds and achieve a high accuracy of 94.7% in classifying wound healing stages of hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling, by using a convolutional neural network. The outcomes of this study not only provide two BC-based bandages as multifunctional wound management, but also demonstrate a new strategy for the development of the next generation of smart bandage. Employing silver nanowires (AgNWs) and bacterial cellulose (BC), transparent, ultrathin, breathable, and sandwich-structured BC/AgNWs bandages with superior mechanical properties, antibacterial activities, biocompatibility, and conductivity are prepared for the electrical stimulation treatment of skin defects in rats. The BC bandage also shows good wearability on human skin and is used for classifying wound healing phases by a convolutional neural network.image