Radiation synthesis and characterization of Pectin/acrylamide (PEC/AM) and Pectin/Diethylaminomethylmethacrylate (PEC/DEAMA) hydrogels as Drug delivery systems

Hydrogels of natural and synthetic copolymers were gained a great attention in recent years. In this work, we aimed to prepare different copolymer hydrogels of Pectin/Acrylamide (PEC/PAM) and Pectin/Diethylaminoethylmethacrylate
(PEC/DEAMA) using gamma irradiation. These hydrogels were studied and characterized by different techniques as, FTIR,TGA and SEM. The hydrogels were also, characterized in terms of gel content, and swelling at different pH and different temperature. The results showed that the gel fraction of PEC/PAM hydrogels decreases greatly with decreasing the contents of PEC and also the gel fraction increases with increasing irradiation dose up to 2.5 Mr then decreases with further increase of radiation dose. While for the PEC/DEAMA hydrogels, it is noticed that as the DEAMA content increases the gel content decrease. Water uptake percent was studied through the effect of temperature , it was found that the swelling of all the hydrogels changes within the temperature range 30–80 0C,it was found that water uptake percent increases as temperature increase for the system PEC/PAM and decreased for the system PEC/DEAMA. Also, waterup take studid as a function of pH within the pH range 2–8. Results prove that water uptake percent increases as pH increas for both systems. However, the swelling of PEC/PAM hydrogels was greater than the hydrogel based on PEC/DEAMA. The swelling kinetic studies showed that the swelling of all the hydrogels affected by the pH of the medium and the temperature and also, the highest percentage of swelling rate occurred at the first stagess of swelling time. The Pectin hydrogels was evaluated for the possible use in drug delivery systems. In this respect, the release properties of tetracycline HCL, as a model drug, was investigated. It was found that the percentage release from the hydrogels increase with time, and also the percentage release was examined at different pH values, where the highest release percentage occurred at pH8 for both copolymer systems.