Fig. 3
Conductivity, photothermal property, release behavior, and antibacterial activity of the cryogels. a Conductivity of the cryogels at wet state and dry state. b ΔT-NIR irradiation time curves of the cryogels using a constant light intensity of 1.4 W/cm2. c ΔT-NIR irradiation time curves of QCSG/CNT4 varying the light intensity from 0.6 to 0.9, 1.1 and 1.4 W/cm2, respectively. d Spontaneous release profiles and NIR-triggered release profiles of ibuprofen from QCSG/CNT0 and QCSG/CNT4. Both QCSG/CNT0 with and without NIR irradiation and QCSG/CNT4 without NIR irradiation showed similar sustained release profiles as long as 111 h in PBS. However, QCSG/CNT4 presented obvious burst release after applying 10 min NIR irradiation at each time point and completely released the drug within 74 h. When stopping the irradiation, ibuprofen’s release profile returned to its common slow pattern. The killing-time curves of e S. aureus, g E. coli, and i P. aeruginosa for the cryogel groups and PBS group after exposed to NIR irradiation (1.4 W/cm2) for 0 min, 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 20 min, respectively. Photographs of the survival f S. aureus, h E. coli, and j P. aeruginosa for the cryogel groups and PBS group after exposed to NIR irradiation (1.4 W/cm2) for 0 min, 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 20 min, respectively. Scale bar: 1 cm. **P < 0.01 using Student's t-test (two-sided). Error bar indicates s.d. (n = 3)
