BIOBASED POLYELECTROLYTES: NOVEL GREEN PROCESSES FOR THE PREPARATION OF FUNCTIONAL BIOMATERIALS

JAVIER CARRETERO-GONZÁLEZ; ARSEN BURLAKA; MIJANGOS, CARMEN; GONZALEZ, JIMENA S.; HERNANDEZ, REBECA

Estocolmo

Conferencia; BIOPOL2019; 2019

Polymers from renewable sources are important candidates for the development of biomaterials due to their intrinsic characteristics of biocompatibility and biodegradability. Many of the natural polymers are polyelectrolytes, that is, they present ionizable groups (polyanions or polycations) that can be dissociated in water resulting in charged polymer backbones and releasing counterions to the solution. Within this context, it is important to remark on the results obtained about biobased polymer materials obtained through layer-by-layer assembly as films, membranes or their combination with inorganic nanoparticles1-2. Blending of aqueous solutions of polyanions and polycations leads to the formation of polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) that are non processable amorphous structures stabilized with ionic bonds3. In 2009, a novel approach for the processability of PECs was published: the addition of salts to PECs exposed to ultracentrifugal fields, gave rise to compacted structures designated as CoPECs that macroscopically behaves as hydrogels4. CoPECs represent a new approach to hydrogel formation that allows to discard toxic crosslinkers and are versatile materials with tuneable mechanical properties5. In this communication we report on the development of hydrogels obtained from gelatin and chondroitin sulphate (ChS) able to adapt to changes in the biological environment (such as salt concentration or pH) to be employed as potential actuators o sensors inside a biomedical device. To that aim, a novel approach based on the formation of compact polyelectrolyte-based hydrogels (CoPECs) has been undertaken and the response of the obtained hydrogels to pH and NaCl concentration has been fully characterized and related to their conductivity properties measured through cyclic voltammetry