¹ Department of chemistry, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA

² Department of Chemistry, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA

*Corresponding author(s): samina.yasmeen@morehouse.edu(S.Yasmeen)

Abstract

Cartilage healing has become a challenging target of cartilage tissue engineering due to limited regenerative abilities, complex architecture, and lack of effective treatments due to imbalanced production of free radicals (ROS)(1-3). For the long-term functionally damaged articular cartilage, novel injectable thermosensitive PNVCL/hyaluronic acid hydrogels containing various antioxidants were designed to facilitate the regeneration of cartilage. In this study Graft (PVCL-g-meHA200k-g-Nutraceutical) and crosslinked (PVCL-c-meHA200k-c-Nutraceutical) hydrogels were synthesized using free radical polymerization. Hydrogels were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ATR-Imagining, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The ATR-Imaging confirmed the conjugation of PNVCL and nutraceutical on the backbone of HA and also provided the exact spatial distribution of composite hydrogel. Thermal stability of the graft and crosslinked hydrogels was studied using DSC. graft hydrogels were found to be degraded completely in the range of 205°C to 270°C, and crosslinked hydrogels were degraded in the range of 320°C to 390°C. It was found that crosslinked hydrogels are more stable thermally as compare to graft hydrogels. Comparative swelling studies of graft and crosslinked hydrogels determines that crosslinked hydrogel have a low swelling profile as compare to graft hydrogels. These studies show that hydrogels present the potential to be used for biomedical materials.

Keywords: hydrogel, thermo-responsive, hyaluronic acid

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