Synthesis and characterization of double network hydrogel based on gellan-gum for drug delivery

Abstract

The fabrication of a suitable polymeric network could help to design an efficient drug delivery platform for modulating the release of therapeutic molecules. To this aim, the fabrication of a new gellan-based magnetic double network hydrogel nanocomposite (MDNH) was investigated in the current work. The crosslinking agents were prepared by samples of Gellan/PAMPS/PAAm DN hydrogels with different amounts of Fe2+/Fe3+ and N, N’-methylenebis acrylamide (MBA) components for investigating their drug delivery and mechanical features. The structure of synthesized MDNH was determined by employing the characterization techniques such as FTIR, TEM, VSM, DSC, FESEM, and TGA. The mechanical strengths of models were also measured (σf of 325.2 KPa, εf of 0.69 mm/mm). The synthesized MDNH showed an appropriate modulating control for releasing kinetics of the investigated Metformin Hydrochloride (MH) drug besides showing a good mechanical feature. In vitro release of MH from the drug-loaded hydrogel was examined in pH 5.4 (PBS) and pH 7.4 (PBS) media. Based on the obtained results, decreasing the medium pH from 7.4 to 5.4 accelerate the MH release from 50% at pH = 7.4 up to 84% at pH = 5.4 after a period of 1500 min. The applicability of drug release kinetic models was proved.