Abstract
Tayyaba Rana1, Zainab Naeem1, Sumiyya Javaid1, Nayab Sajid1, Aamna Habib1, Madeeha Fatima2, Muhammad Imran Khan1 and Abdul Qayyum Khan3* Author Affiliations 1Pharm-D (2013-2018) MPhil Pharmaceutics, University of central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan 2Lecturer, The University of Faisalabad, Pakistan 3Pharm-D, MPhil, PhD, Hannover Medical School, Germany Received: December 21, 2020 | Published: January 08, 2021 Corresponding author: Abdul Qayyum Khan, Pharm-D, MPhil, PhD, Hannover Medical School, Germany DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2021.33.005340
Highlights
HistoryThe word “hydrogel”, as stated by Lee, Kwon and Park, has been used since 1894 but that material was not a hydrogel but a colloidal gel [1]
Hydrogels are water-swollen networks, which are cross-linked structures consisting of hydrophilic polymers
Hydrogels have been used in various areas including industry and medicine due to their excellent characteristics such as high swelling capacity, high content of water, compatibility with other biological molecules, controlled chemical and physical properties, high mechanical integrity and biodegradability. They have been the center of attention of researchers from the past 50 years because of their promising applications in industries and other areas. They are used in different fields, in medicine, in the diagnosis of the diseases, in culturing of cells, in injuries as wound healers, in cosmetics, in skin diseases like pruritis, in environmental pollution reduction and other miscellaneous applications such as in diapers for babies and sanitary products
Summary
The word “hydrogel”, as stated by Lee, Kwon and Park, has been used since 1894 but that material was not a hydrogel but a colloidal gel (of inorganic salts) [1] These gels are made of polymeric matrices but they do not dissolve instead they swell [2]. Some influential and important work was performed on hydrogels in the 1980s by Lim and Sun [5] They have been used in medicine from about fifty years ago. The third generation focused on investigating and developing stereo complex materials and hydrogels that were cross-linked through physical interactions. This development led to the development of “smart hydrogels” that are polymeric matrices with a broad spectrum of tailorable attributes [7]. These gels maintain their stability in the fluctuating condition such as temperature [8]
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