Synthesis of chitosan-based hydrogel by using photopolymerization technique

Abstract

In this study, a novel route was developed to fabricate chitosan-based hydrogel by using photopolymerization technique. Firstly, glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) grafted onto the chitosan (CTS) backbone to produce chitosan derivative product having photopolymerizable groups (CTS-g-GMA). Following, CTS-g-GMA and PEGDA are subjected to photopolymerization to form chemically crosslinked hydrogel. The chemical structure of the obtained chitosan-based hydrogel was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analyses. Thermal behavior of hydrogel was determined by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). The thermal analyses showed that (CTS-g-GMA)-PEGDA had higher thermal stability than neat chitosan. Water uptake capacities (swelling ratio) of hydrogels obtained by using different UV exposure time were determined gravimetrically. From the swelling test result, it was observed that exposure time has the effect on the water uptake capacity of hydrogels. Additionally, cytotoxicity test for chitosan-based hydrogel was carried out by using L929 fibroblasts. All of the obtained results demonstrated that chitosan-based hydrogel fabricated in this work could be used for biomedical applications in future works.