Preparación y caracterización de geles conductores a base de quitosano para posibles aplicaciones biomédicas

The polymeric gels have a wide range of biomedical applications including their use for tissue growth, controlled drug release, enzyme immobilization, among others. Due to the ability of the gels to store water inside and the ionic conductivity that could be generated through ionizable functional groups, these materials may have applications in clinical diagnosis and in electro-therapy. In the present research, conductive gels based on chitosan (a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer) were  prepared  using  glutaraldehyde  as  crosslinking  agent.  Chitosan  gels  were  characterized  by infrared spectroscopy with Fourier transform (FTIR) and it was also determined the values for their viscosity (μ), electric conductivity (κ) and  pH. These properties vary as the crosslinking degree changed. One of the samples with comparable values to those of the commercial gels presented an absolute viscosity of 365x10 3  cP, ionic conductivity of 0.2140 Sm -1  and pH of 3.5, which are promising values for their use in commercial gels with biomedical applications.