Bio-Polymer Based Self-Healing Hydrogel Membrane for Wound Dressing Applications

Abstract

Recently hydrogels have got high scientific interest and become important material owing to their numerous applications in various walks of life. Due to the toxicity and nonbiocompatibility, bio-based polymers are preferred over synthetic polymers-based hydrogels. Self-healing hydrogels, in particular are superior due to their self-repairing ability. So, combination of bio-based self-healing materials are utmost important in said field. In this study, a bio-polymer chitosan cross-linked with vanillin was incorporated with inorganic filler graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) to enhance its mechanical and physical properties. Furthermore, various concentrations of starch caped silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were optimized with fabricated self-healing membranes to introduce anti-bacterial activities. The developed membranes were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Mechanical testing was conducted to assess the physical strength of membranes along with self-healing efficiency. The fabricated membranes shown improved mechanical properties and self-healing efficiency more than 90%. The antibacterial activities were conducted against pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. The maximum inhibition zone was reported 36 ±0.2mm and 30 ±0.3mm respectively. Further physical testing such as swelling ratios, oxygen permeability, porosity, water vapor transmission rates, and moisture retention capabilities shown that fabricated membranes can absorb and maintain high amount of water while being breathable and moist can help in wound healing faster. Lastly, the different kinetic studies were conducted to evaluate the drug release profile. The Higuchian model was best fit, while Korsmeyer peppas model shown that fabricated membranes have nonfickian diffusion mechanism of drug release. The reported results encourage that developed membranes are potentially suitable candidates for wound dressing materials.