Hydrogel membranes of PVAl/ clay by gamma radiation

In the last decades several studies concerning the new methods for drug delivery system have been investigated. A new field known as “smart therapy” involves devices and drug delivery systems to detect, identify and treat the site affected by the disease, not interfering with the biological system. Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is an endemic disease that is characterized by the development of single or multiple localized lesions on exposed areas of skin and one coetaneous treatment could be a potential solution. The aim of this study was to obtain polymeric hydrogel matrices of poly(vinylalcohol)(PVAl) and chitosan with inorganic nanoparticles, which can release a drug according to the need of the treatment of injury caused by leishmania on the skin. The hydrogels matrices were obtained with PVAl/ chitosan and PVAl/ chitosan 0.5; 1.0 and 1.5% laponite RD clay, crosslinked by ionizing gamma radiation with dose of 25 kGy. The techniques used for characterization were swelling, gel fraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetry (TGA). After synthesis, the samples were immersed in distilled water and weighed in periods of time until 60 h for the swelling determination. The obtained results have indicated that the swelling of the membranes increases with clay concentration, in consequence of ionic groups present in the clay.