Recent advances in preparation of polymer hydrogel composites and their applications in enzyme immobilization

Hydrogels as three-dimensional crosslinked polymer networks are widely used in biomedical applications such as tissue engineering scaffolds, wound dressing, contact lenses, drug delivery systems, and cell or enzyme immobilization. Hydrogels are used as efficient matrixes for immobilization of various enzymes and improve their stability over a wide range of operational conditions that make them suitable for several industrial applications. The performance of hydrogels in enzyme immobilization depends on some parameters of the network structure involving the molecular weight of the polymer chain, the polymer volume fraction in the swollen state, and the corresponding mesh size. This review summarizes the recent developments of the synthetic approaches for the preparation of the natural and synthetic hydrogel composites applied for the immobilization of various enzymes. Moreover, the opportunities and challenges associated with hydrogel-based enzyme carriers are discussed and the future perspectives are drawn for applying natural and synthetic hydrogel composites in enzyme immobilization.