Designing Kappa-carrageenan/guar gum/polyvinyl alcohol-based pH-responsive silane-crosslinked hydrogels for controlled release of cephradine

Abstract Kappa-carrageenan (KC)/guar gum (GG)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-based pH-sensitive hydrogels were prepared using silane as a crosslinker. Vinyltriethoxy silane (VTEOS) is a non-toxic and biocompatible in nature so, its influence on the physiochemical properties of synthesized KcGP hydrogel films was investigated by varying its concentration. Different swelling media like water, ionic, buffer solutions were used to find out the swelling results. With the increase in concentration of VTEOS, the swelling ratio decreased in water, whereas all hydrogels showed the maximum swelling in acidic media, low in basic and moderate swelling at neutral pH. Various characterization techniques like FTIR, SEM and TGA were performed to study the characteristic changes of native and crosslinked hydrogel films. Cephradine (model drug) was loaded on KcGP2 and studied its drug release pattern in phosphate buffer saline. The drug was released in a controlled way up to 85.5% in 120 min. Cytocompatibility test on 3T3 cells fibroblast cell line showed that these hydrogels are non-toxic and can be used not only for targeted as well as oral drug delivery but also for other biomedical applications.