Measurement of Young’s Modulus of Hydrogel/Graphene Foam Composite for Neural Scaffold

The nerve scaffold that prepared with hydrogel and graphene foam complex for the treatment of peripheral nerve injury (PNI) showed a competitive application prospect. Since the rigidity of scaffold is important to the performance of the scaffold, the Young’s modulus of a series of composites composed of hydrogel and graphene foam (GF) with different numbers of layers are carried out, in order to conduct further research work for better rigidity of the scaffold and to find the possible methods to adjust the rigidity of the scaffold. The results reveal that the values of Young’s modulus of the composite composed of hydrogel and single-layer or double-layer graphene foam are increased about 7 times compared with that of the pure hydrogel, which showed potential improvement in mechanical property of such scaffold.