Production And Characterization Of Bacterial Cellulose Nanocomposite Hydrogel

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has developed as an alternative to plant cellulose in recent years. Due to its excellent nano-sized fibril network structure, high water-holding capacity, high crystallinity, high tensile strength and good biocompatibility, BC is being used as a promising biomaterial for making biocomposites in the field of tissue engineering, such as scaffold for cartilage, wound dressing, dental implants, nerve regeneration and vascular grafts.However, the mechanical properties of pure BC are still too weak for those biomaterials. In this study, different BC/PVA/PEG composite hydrogels were produced by using simple freeze-thaw cycles and were evaluated with respect to the physicochemical properties of BC/PVA/PEG composites including structure, crystallinity, tensile strength and thermal stability by using scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, tensile test and thermal analysis. As expected, SEM images indicated that PVA covered well on the original BC fibers forming an interpenetrated network, which combined with PEG by hydrogen bond. The addition of PEG resulted in an apparent increase of crystallization of PVA, which has been validated by XRD results. Tensile strength results showed that the addtion of PEG significantly improved the mechanical properties of the composite hydrogels. Compared to the BC/PVA, the thermal stability of BC/PVA/PEG hydrogels was improved significantly with the addition of PEG.