Synthesis of Chitosan-Polyvinyl Alcohol Copolymers for Smart Drug Delivery Application

Abstract

Chitosan is a natural polymer obtained from exoskeletons of crustaceans and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a synthetic polymer which has excellent film forming ability along with non-toxic nature. The current work focuses on synthesizing a smart polymer by copolymerization of natural and synthetic polymers and exploring its applications in drug delivery. The copolymers were blended in different ratios and were synthesized using ammonium ceric nitrate as initiator and glutaraldehyde as a crosslinking agent which were converted to films by casting method. Amoxicillin, as a model drug was incorporated to the copolymerized films to study the in-vitro drug release. The films obtained were evaluated by varying the pH to study the pH responsive nature of films. Drug release studies were performed to obtain the release profile of drug; water uptake capacity of the copolymerized film were measured to determine the swelling behaviour of the films. The films were further characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to identify the structural and morphological changes along with thermal transitions. The results indicate that the synthesized copolymers are pH responsive in nature having great potential for application in controlled and targeted drug delivery.