{"id":247089,"date":"2026-11-11T07:16:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/gamma-radiation-transforms-brittle-bioplastic-into-superstructure-hydrogel"},"modified":"2026-11-11T07:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:16:30","slug":"gamma-radiation-transforms-brittle-bioplastic-into-superstructure-hydrogel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/gamma-radiation-transforms-brittle-bioplastic-into-superstructure-hydrogel","title":{"rendered":"Gamma radiation transforms brittle bioplastic into \u2018superstructure\u2019 hydrogel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Biomaterials engineers have created a \u201csuperstructure\u201d hydrogel that could be an eco-friendly tool used in medical technologies and as a recovery aid for surgical procedures. The research is <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/marc.70453\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications.<\/p>\n<p>University of Queensland researcher Cole Walchle discovered the gel material while experimenting on an existing bioplastic and said it was a strong candidate for use in tissue engineering, wound recovery, drug delivery and as a specialty coating or lubricant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCrucially, the hydrogel is derived from a bio-derived and biodegradable polymer that\u2014while promising itself\u2014is too brittle to be commercially viable,\u201d said Walchle, a Ph.D. student with UQ\u2019s School of Chemical Engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biomaterials engineers have created a \u201csuperstructure\u201d hydrogel that could be an eco-friendly tool used in medical technologies and as a recovery aid for surgical procedures. The research is published in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications. University of Queensland researcher Cole Walchle discovered the gel material while experimenting on an existing bioplastic and said it was [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}