Abstract
Hydrogels are three-dimensional soft polymeric materials that can entrap huge amounts of water. They are widely attractive in the biomedicine area because of their outstanding applications such as biosensors, drug delivery vectors, or matrices for cell scaffolds. Generally, the low mechanical strength and fragile structure of the hydrogels limit their feasibility, but this is not the case. In this work, acrylic acid–agar hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties were synthesized using gamma radiation as a crosslinking promoter. The obtained hydrogels exhibited a water absorption capacity up to 6000% in weight without breaking and keeping their shape; additionally, they showed a noticeable adhesion to the skin. The synthesized materials were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and mechanical testing. Additionally, their water uptake capacity and critical pH were studied. Net(Agar/AAc) hydrogel exhibited a noticeable capacity to load silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), which endowed it with antimicrobial activity that was demonstrated when challenged against Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on in vitro conditions.
Highlights
The biomaterials field has experienced rapid growth in recent decades due to the need to create new polymeric vectors for drug delivery [1], playing an invaluable role in medicine by restoring function and facilitating healing for people after injury or disease [2]
Synthesized from natural polymers, hydrogels are generally biocompatible and highly hydrophilic materials, they present poor mechanical properties [8]; this flaw could be solved by the addition of synthetic polymers such as poly(acrylic acid) (PAAc) or methacrylic acid [9,10], e.g., the combination of synthetic and natural polymers can produce materials that are more resistant to traction and better structured [11]
We report a facile method for the synthesis of highly crosslinked hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties obtained by the γ-radiation method using agar and acrylic acid as raw materials and a short reaction time
Summary
The biomaterials field has experienced rapid growth in recent decades due to the need to create new polymeric vectors for drug delivery [1], playing an invaluable role in medicine by restoring function and facilitating healing for people after injury or disease [2]. Biomaterials may be natural or synthetic and are widely used in medical applications to support, enhance, or replace damaged tissue or a biological function [2,3] In this sense, hydrogels have become an important spotlight of study, while it remains a great challenge to obtain hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties, self-adhesion, and resistance to deformation [4,5,6]. Hydrogels have become an important spotlight of study, while it remains a great challenge to obtain hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties, self-adhesion, and resistance to deformation [4,5,6] These materials have promising applications in biomedicine including, but not limited to, drug delivery, cell scaffolds, sensors, tissue engineering, and wound dressing because they are soft, biocompatible, flexible, and retain huge amounts of fluids or water into their network structure [4,5,6,7].
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