About the Special Issue

The development of bio-based green materials is of great interest worldwide for the protection of the safety of our environment. Lignin, the most abundant natural polyaromatic with unique properties such as antioxidant, UV-blocking ability, non-toxicity, renewability, and low price, has been widely applied in different areas including agricultural, medical, sensing, and energy fields. Upgrading lignin in the form of hydrogels provides great opportunity for revealing its potential applications. 

There are different ways for incorporating lignin into hydrogel structures such as (i) functionalization of lignin with polymerizable groups and then its copolymerization with different types of commercial monomers, (ii) functionalization of lignin with crosslinkable units and post-crosslinking using various types of crosslinkers, and (iii) incorporation of lignin nanostructures into the hydrogel compositions for improving a targeted property of the hydrogel. 

Various types of hydrogels with diverse properties such as self-healing hydrogels, injectable hydrogels, nanocomposite hydrogels, conductive hydrogels, adhesive hydrogels, elastic hydrogels, and so on can be prepared by these methods. Hydrogels with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties are good candidates for medical and wound dressing applications whereas conductive hydrogels with elastic and self-healing properties are suitable materials for sensing applications. Different characteristics lead to different properties in the hydrogels, making them suitable for desired applications. We invite you to submit your original research and review papers about hydrogels composed of lignin as one of the main components to this special issue.

Keywords: Lignin, hydrogel, wound healing, sensing, medical, biomedical

Call for Papers