Cellulose-Based Hydrogel for Personal Hygiene Applications

Abstract

Personal hygiene product is an inseparable part of urban society. It has given comfort, reliability, and flexibility to sick people, women, and children. The hygiene items containing superabsorbent polymer (hydrogels) for absorbing large amount of body fluids are the attractive inventions of modern science. The hydrogels swell and imbibe body fluids in the presence of hydrophilic functional groups in the polymeric backbone. Current trend of using acrylate-based superabsorbent in hygiene products is creating significant portion of urban garbage. This pile up is not only shrinking land sites but also harming a lot to the environment due to non-degradability of superabsorbent materials existing in the core of hygiene product. In spite of high water-holding capacity of petrochemical-based superabsorbent polymer, it has a hidden curse on nature of non-degradability and health risk. Cellulose is the most abundant biocompatible matter on this earth which basically originated from plants. It is also naturally occurring long chain polymer that plays a vital role in food cycle in animal kingdom. Besides this cellulose, its derivatives have large application in various fields. As cellulose and its etherified and esterified derivatives have attractive physicochemical and mechanical properties, hydrogels synthesized from cellulose and its derivative can be alternative to synthetic superabsorbent polymer. Cellulose-based hydrogels have found application in various fields like agriculture, biomedical, tissue engineering, wound dressing, pharmaceuticals, etc. Among various applications, some products are available in the market, and some are in research level. Due to fast swelling and other extraordinary properties (i.e., biocompatible and biodegradable), cellulosic materials (cellulose-originated hydrogels) can be applied in personal hygiene product so that superabsorbent from nonrenewable materials is partially or completely replaced. In this chapter, history of using superabsorbent in hygiene product, brief discussion on hydrogel synthesis, health and environment risk related to non-cellulosic absorbent materials, suitability of cellulose-based hydrogels over available acrylate hydrogels, and recommendation for development have been discussed.