Natural carbohydrate gums based hydrogels

Abstract

The future of good research lies in the search of innocuous material development, based primarily on natural resources. Keeping in this perspective, four different natural gums namely, Locust bean Gum, Gum Ghatti, Gum Tragacanth, and, Gum Acacia, are used to synthesize four different novel hydrogels via free radical polymerization method with sodium acrylate and acrylamide. The synthesis is evident with the help of characterization using TGA (Thermo Gravimetric Analysis), FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy), SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), 13C NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), and swelling studies in buffer solutions of pH 4, pH 7.4, pH 9.2, and, in distilled water. The synthesized hydrogels are potent enough in its potential utility in pharmaceuticals, drug delivery, tissue engineering as scaffolds that generally mimic human skin and in wound healing activity by incorporating the drug into it.