Synthesis and Chracterization of Eco-Friendly Hydrogels from Cellulosic Materials

Abstract

Hydrogels are insoluble, three-dimensional, crosslinked polymeric networks which swell in the presence of water and other fluids. They can imbibe plenty of water without dissolution compared to their own mass. Most of the present superabsorbent hydrogels are petrochemical-based and non-degradable in nature. Cellulose is the most abundant natural biopolymer which possess an intrinsic nature of degradability, biocompatibility and non-toxicity. Some cellulose derivatives show smart behavior. Cellulose-based biodegradable Super Absorbent Hydrogels (SAH) have been synthesized from three cellulosic materials (cotton, sugarcane bagasse and CMC) by simple and energy-efficient graft co-polymerization. Among the materials, cotton is pure cellulosic material. Sugarcane bagasse is a cellulose-enriched agro-waste product. Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is the most-consumed cellulose derivative all over the world. Every year, in Bangladesh, a large amount of agro-waste is produced and becomes a source of environmental pollution. This is one reason that three cellulosic sources (cotton, sugarcane bagasse and carboxymethyl cellulose) have been chosen for this research to synthesize biodegradable hydrogels. Besides synthesis, another objective was to characterize the product, physically and instrumentally, and find the applications which could be beneficial to human welfare. Biocompatible hydrogels were synthesized from base material cellulosic sources (cotton, sugarcane bagasse and carboxymethyl cellulose) and, by varying combinations of monomers [acrylic acid (AA), acrylamide (Am) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) and one polymer-poly vinyl pyrollidone(PVP)], a number of hydrogel samples were synthesized. The prepared hydrogels in this research work are, i) Cot-g-poly(AA-co-Am) hydrogel; ii) Cot-g-poly(Am-co-PVP) hydrogel; iii) Cot-g-poly(Am-co-MMA) hydrogel; iv) Sugarcane bagasse-g- poly(AA-co-Am) hydrogel; v) Sugarcane bagasse-g-poly(Am-co-PVP) hydrogel; vi) Sugarcane bagasse-g- poly(Am-co-MMA) hydrogel; vii) CMC-g- poly(AA-co-Am) hydrogel; viii) CMC-g-poly(Am-co-PVP) hydrogel; ix) CMC-g- poly(Am-co-MMA) hydrogel and x) anti-microbial hydrogel.