Abstract:Hydrogel, a 3-dimensional network, had been widely applied in various fields, including medical, daily chemistry, food, electronics et al. Improving the mechanical and antibacterial properties of the hydrogel will widen the applied field and is highly urgent. Here, we presented a chitosan (CS)/acrylic acid(AA) double network hydrogel with high strength and strong antibaterial, which was generated by in situ photopolymering monomer AA in CS solution with N, N"-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) as crosslinker. The effects of different monomer concentrations and crosslinker types on the mechanical properties of dual-network hydrogels and the swelling behavior in deionized water were investigated in detail. The results show that the mechanical properties of the hydrogel are optimal when the concentration of AA and CS are 20wt% and 5wt% respectively. The Ag+ was introduced into the CS/AA hydrogel by immersing the hydrogel into silver nitrate solution, which was reduced to silver nanoparticles by UV-vis. The silver nanoparticles dopped CS/AA hydrogel exhibited further increase in mechanical properties as high as 5.2 Mpa and the antibacterial properties with zone of inhibition 3.2 mm. We believe the strategy developed here will inspire future design on the dual-network hydrogel with antibacterial and high strength.