NOVEL NATURAL GUM 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, were used for synthesizing four different novel hydrogels via free radical polymerization method with sodium acrylate, acrylamide. The synthesis was evident with the help of characterization using Thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, 13C NMR, 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.