SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLY(VINYL ALCOHOL)-HYALURONIC ACID BLENDED HYDROGEL MEMBRANES

Elbadawy Kamoun

doi:10.21608/ajps.2014.6965

Abstract

Poly(vinyl alcohol)PVA is a hydrophilic polymer and water soluble . It is used in many biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, due to its advantages such as: non-toxic, non-carcinogenic, and biodegradable characteristics with the ease of processing. Physically cross-linked hydrogel membranes composed of different amounts of hyaluronic acid (HA) blend with (PVA) were prepared by freeze–thawing method. This freezing–thawing cycle was repeated for three consecutive cycles. Properties of (PVA–HA) hydrogel membrane such as gel fraction, swelling, mechanical properties(tensile strength, elongation to break),degradation and protein adsorption were investigated. With the increasing of HA content, the gel fraction, the maximum tensile strength and elongation at break(%) of (PVA-HA) hydrogel membranes were decreased. Furthermore, with the increase of HA content, the swelling, the protein adsorption and the hydrolytic degradation of PVA-HA hydrogel membrane were increased.After soaking of hydrogel membrane for three days in phosphate buffer saline (PBS), the maximum weight loss of PVA–HA hydrogel membranes ranged between 18% and 70% according to HA content, this indicates that they are biodegradable.

Highlights

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in physically cross-linked gels (Peppas & Scott, 1992 ;De Jong et al, 2001; Molina et al, 2001; Berger et al, 2004 and Van Tomme et al, 2005)
This due to, the high hydrophilicity of hyaluronic acid (HA) in PVA film which increases the water uptake character of the studied hydrogel. This coincide with Hwang et al (2010) and Abou El-Enin (2013). They found that the swelling of PVA-dextran and PVA-alginate blended hydrogel membranes increased with increasing dextran and alginate contentes respectevily
To investigate the influence of HA on the mechanical properties of the hydrogels, their tensile strength and elongation to break were evaluated (Fig.2 ).The maximum tensile strength and elongation at break of hydrogel membranes decreases with increasing HA content

Summary

1-Introduction

There has been an increasing interest in physically cross-linked gels (Peppas & Scott, 1992 ;De Jong et al, 2001; Molina et al, 2001; Berger et al, 2004 and Van Tomme et al, 2005). In a method, pioneered by Peppas et al (1975), semi-crystalline gels were prepared by exposing PVA aqueous solution to repeated freezing and thawing cycles which induced crystallization and resulted in a network structure with the quasi-permanent crystallites which act as physical cross-linking sites in the network. This method is the preferred route to prepare an. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a naturally-occurring linear polysaccharide comprised of β1,4-linked D-glucuronic acid (β-1,3) N-acetyl-D-glucosamine disaccharide units, and it is the only non-sulfated glycosaminoglycan (GAG) in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of all higher animals This polyanionic polymer has unique physicochemical properties and distinctive biological functions (Laurent et al, 1995). This is the first time to prepare these membranes by this method for wound dressing

Materials

AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION