Cellulose hydrogels: Green and sustainable soft biomaterials

Cellulose is a highly abundant, green, sustainable, and biodegradable polymer. These characteristic features of cellulose make it a useful polymer for the synthesis of bio-based hydrogel/or soft material for various applications. This article is focused on the preparation of biodegradable and biocompatible cellulose-based hydrogels using different methods based on the crosslinking agents used and the solvents used for cellulose dissolution. A study on the classification of different types of hydrogels was also reported. This article also discusses the self-healing cellulose-based hydrogel, bacterial cellulose-based hydrogel and includes the use of cellulose hydrogel in agriculture, biomedical field such as wound healing, wound dressing, and tissue engineering, water purification, removal of heavy metal, and in environmentally beneficial supercapacitors. •Cellulose is the most abundant renewable biopolymer and becomes a useful polymer for the synthesis of bio-based hydrogel.•Bacterial cellulose hydrogel has several advantages over plant cellulose hydrogel due to crystalline nanofibrillar structure.•Cellulose hydrogel is a green and sustainable material for better replacement of hazardous petroleum-based hydrogels.