Evaluation of network parameters and drug release behavior of gum acacia-crosslinked-carbopol hydrogel wound dressings

Present article discusses the synthesis, characterization, biodegradation, network parameter and drug release of gum acacia-crosslinked-carbopol hydrogel wound dressing. Polymers have been characterized by ¹³C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, elemental analysis, cryo-scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, differential thermal analysis, differential thermogravimetry, and differential scanning calorimetry studies. Network parameters of hydrogel wound dressings such as polymer volume fraction in the swollen state φ, Flory–Huggins interaction parameter χ, molecular weight of the polymer chain between two neighboring cross links M_c, crosslink density ρ and the corresponding mesh size ξ have also been determined. Different in vitro release kinetic models (zero order, first order, Higuchi square root law, Korsmeyer-Peppas, and Hixson-Crowell cube root models) have been applied on the drug release profile. The release of antibiotic drug moxifloxacin from the drug loaded hydrogel matrix occurred through non-Fickian diffusion mechanism and release profile best fitted in the Korsmeyer-Peppas model. Semi-contact mode atomic force microscopic imaging showed that rough surface with root mean square roughness 82.868 nm of the polymer films.