Development of textile-based sodium alginate and chitosan hydrogel dressings

Abstract

Wound healing is a dynamic and complex mechanism. The healing process is affected by many factors, which can be local factors such as wound type, depth of the damaged tissue and bacterial contamination or systemic factors such as patient’s age, diet, and diseases. Prior goals should be shortening the wound healing time, ease the pain of the patient and limiting the scar formation. Therefore, the wound should be evaluated profoundly, and the wound care process decided carefully. In this study, textile-hydrogel hybrids were designed to use in mild to moderate exudate wounds. Hydrogels were formed using natural based sodium alginate and chitosan polymers in different cross-linker (PEGDGE) concentrations. To identify the optimum formulation the mechanical properties (hardness, compressibility, adhesiveness, cohesiveness, and elasticity) was examined by texture profile analysis. The gel flow properties were determined by rheological analysis. The suitable formulations for dermal applications were formed on viscose and Tencel nonwovens. Physical features (mass and thickness), pH, absorbency characteristics, transfer properties (air and water vapor permeability), morphologic features (SEM), chemical properties (FT-IR) of textile-based hydrogel dressings were examined.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Biopolymers
• chitosan
• hydrogel
• nonwoven
• poly (ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether
• sodium alginate
• wound dressings

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aylin ZİYLAN from Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University for her valuable suggestions and Dr. Gonca BALCI KILIÇ from Textile Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University for assistance on variance analysis on SPSS software. Preliminary results were presented orally on ICNF 2019 - 4th International Conference on Natural Fibers.