Novel highly swelling nanoporous hydrogel based on polysaccharide/protein hybrid backbone

A novel high capacity swelling nanoporous hydrogel (NPH) was synthesized via graft copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) onto kappa-carrageenan (kC, as a polysaccharide) and gelatin (as a protein) hybrid backbone, after hydrolysis of this system. The Taguchi method as a strong experimental design tool was used for its optimized synthesis. The Taguchi method was applied for the experimental and standard 9 orthogonal array (OA) with four factors and three levels for each factor. A series of NPHs were synthesized by proposed conditions of Qualitek-4 Software. Considering the results of 9 trials according to analysis of variance (ANOVA), optimum conditions were proposed. The swelling behavior of optimum NPHs was measured in various solutions with pH values ranging from 1 to 13. In addition, swelling kinetics, swelling in various organic solvents and various salt solutions were investigated. The hydrogel formation was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetrical analysis (TGA). The study of the surface morphology of hydrogels using SEM showed a highly nanoporous and cellular structure for the sample obtained under optimized condition.