Development and rheological investigation of novel alginate/N‐succinylchitosan hydrogels

In the present article alginate hydrogels and novel hydrogels based on blends of alginate/N‐succinylchitosan have been realized in water solution at neutral conditions. The gels have been obtained by crosslinking via the internal setting method using calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) as calcium ions source. A rheological investigation of both the plain alginate and the alginate/N‐succinylchitosan blend hydrogels has been performed by means of oscillatory dynamic measurements. The effect of the inclusion of different amounts of CaCO₃ on the critical deformation (γ_c) characterizing the limit of the linear viscoelastic regime has been studied for the plain alginate gels. The frequency response in small amplitude oscillatory experiments of the plain alginate gels has been investigated in terms of the storage (G′) and loss (G″) modulus behavior. The dynamic data have been interpreted in terms of the Friedrich and Heymann model. The inclusion of the N‐succinylchitosan, in the range 10–50% w/w, had no effect on the γ_c values. On the contrary, when the 10% w/w of the N‐succinylchitosan is added to the plain alginate gels, a significant increase in the storage modulus values is recorded for all the systems analyzed. The gelation kinetics has been investigated and the results indicate that the kinetics process can be accelerated increasing the percentage of Ca⁺² ions and/or including the N‐succinylchitosan in the plain alginate systems. Finally, the morphological analysis of scaffolds obtained from the hydrogels through freeze‐drying revealed an interconnected porous structure. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 1167–1182, 2008