Preparation of Bacterial Cellulose Based Hydrogels and Their Viscoelastic Behavior

Bacterial cellulose (BC) based hydrogels have been prepared in blended with carboxymethylcellulose and polyvinyl pyrrolidone by using heat treatment. The properties of BC-CMC and BC-PVP hydrogels were compared with pure BC, CMC and PVP hydrogels. These hydrogels were investigated by measuring their structural, morphological and viscoelastic properties. Through the morphological images, alignment of the porous flake like structures could be seen clearly within the inter-polymeric network of the hydrogels. Also, the detail structure analysis of the polymers blended during the hydrogel formation confirms their interactions with each other were studied. Further, the viscoelastic behavior of all the hydrogels in terms of elastic and viscous property was studied. It is observed that at 1% strain, including CMC and PVP hydrogels, all the BC based hydrogels exhibited the linear trend throughout. Also the elastic nature of the material remains high compared to viscous nature. Moreover, the changes could be noticed in case of blended polymer based hydrogels. The values of complex viscosity (eta*) decreases with increase in angular frequency within the range of omega = 0.1-100 rad.s(-1).