Formation and Development of Eco-friendly Antimicrobial Superabsorbent Hydrogel for Personal Healthcare

Abstract

Ecofriendly cellulose-based hydrogel was synthesized with a good absorption and antimicrobial activity for a target applications in personal health care sector. Hydrogel was synthesized by simple free radical graft copolymerization between acrylamide and methyl methacrylate with CMC, in presence of N,Nmethylnebis-acrylamide as crosslinker and potassium persulphate as initiator. For synthesis of two separate antimicrobial hydrogel samples two antimicrobial agents ZnO and TiO2 were added with hydrogel. The products were characterized by physical methods as well as instrumental techniques. It was found that hydrogels with ZnO and TiO2 separately are active against gram positive and gram negative microorganism and have the water absorption capacity of 190 and 173 g/g respectively. Also found that increase in antimicrobial agent percentage water holding capacity decreases but increase antimicrobial activity. From the experimental analysis it can be concluded that the synthesized hydrogel could be a good initiative in the handle of complicacy originates from personal health care products as well as created opportunities for the products to be used in replacement of available petrochemical based super absorbent polymer.