Preparation and properties of glycol chitosan based self-healing hydrogel

Abstract

The self-healing oxidized sodium alginate-glycol chitosan hydrogel (OSA-GC) based on dynamic imine bonds was synthesized. Oxidized sodium alginate (OSA) was synthesized by oxidizing sodium alginate with sodium periodate, and self-healing OSA-GC hydrogels with different cross-linking degrees were prepared by Schiff base reaction with glycol chitosan (GC). The effect of GC concentration on the microscopic morphology, viscoelasticity, swelling performance, self-repair performance, degradation rate and in vitro drug release performance of OSA-GC hydrogels were investigated. The results show that OSA-GC hydrogels have the characteristics of porous structure with a pore size ranging from 50 μm to 280 μm by controlling the mass ratio of OSA to GC. The OSA-GC hydrogels can reach the swelling equilibrium at 120 hours, and the swelling ratio reach 71.3-112.1. OSA-GC hydrogel can be degraded in PBS containing lysozyme (10 mg/mL), and the mass loss of OSA-GC hydrogel is 43.1%-51.9% after 12 days. At room temperature, OSA-GC hydrogels can achieve self-healing within 2 h in the absence of external stimuli. OSA-GC hydrogel loaded with gemcitabine shows a sustained release effect on the anti-cancer drug gemcitabine, and the release time can reach 48 hours in the drug release experiment, which shows promising application prospects in biomedical fields of drug carriers.

Keywords

• self-healing hydrogel
• oxidized sodium alginate
• glycol chitosan
• sustained drug release