Fabrication and Characterization of Chitosan-Polyethylene Glycol (Ch-Peg) Based Hydrogels and Evaluation of Their Potency in Rat Skin Wound Model

Figure 4

Biodegradability of hydrogel composites. After 21 days, all of the fabricated hydrogels showed biodegradability, with weights ranging from 0.1 to 0.24 of their initial weight. Notably, all composite hydrogels were made from 0.5 g of material, and the hydrogels made from solely X had the best biodegradability. When compared to simply X hybrid hydrogels, the presence of Ge and G did not affect the degrading behavior (0.11 versus 0.10 of their initial weights). When chitosan and polyethylene glycol were combined with boric acid, the composite hydrogels (i.e., X : Ge : B : Ch : G, X : Ge : B : Peg : G, and X : Ge : B : Peg : Ch : G) showed a tendency to degrade less, possibly due to cross-linking density. Abbreviations. Xanthan gum (X), boric acid (B), gelatin (Ge), polyethylene glycol (Peg), chitosan (Ch), and glutaraldehyde (G).