Reduced graphene oxide-modified polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel with potential application as skin wound dressings

Traditional wound dressings rarely participate in accelerating active wound healing by stimulating skin cells. The use of a conductive wound dressing to promote the activity of electrically responsive cells is an effective means of accelerating wound healing. This article is describing the synthesis of physical conductive hydrogel of polyvinyl alcohol/reduced graphene oxide (PVA/rGO), and the characteristics of these electroactive dressings are evaluated. The resulting hydrogel demonstrates a denser pore size compared to PVA with improved compressive strength of 32.5 kPa. The pore sizes of PVA/rGO range between 7–45 μm, an average porosity is about 20 ± 11%, the water uptake ratio of the PVA/rGO is 187% ± 60%, and the evaporation rate is about 2020 g/m2.day. Which makes it a desirable template for fibroblast cell culture and wound dressing application. The electrical conductivity of the hydrogel was in the range of 0.7 to 0.8 mS, which is comparable to the electrical conductivity of human skin to facilitate intercellular signaling and current transmission from external electrical stimuli causing cell growth. MTT assays confirmed that the resulting PVA/rGO hydrogel was non-toxic toward human fibroblast cells with antibacterial properties against E. coli. introducing it a good candidate for wound healing applications.