Development of thermo-sensitive poly N-isopropyl acrylamide grafted chitosan derivatives

In this study, the thermo-sensitive copolymers were synthesized by graft copolymerization of poly N isopropyl acrylamide (PNIPAm) onto chitosan (Ch) and aminated chitosan (AmCh) derivative. Free radical polymerization using potassium persulphate (KPS) as initiator was used for performing the grafting process. FTIR, TGA and DSC analysis were used to verify the structure of the resulting graft copolymers. The thermal sensitivity of the prepared copolymers was determined by monitoring the phase transition temperature at 550nm using a UV-VIS spectrophotometer. The results show that the transition of the PNIPAm-g-Ch is sharper than that of the PNIPAmg-AmCh and the tr-ansition, in both cases, became sharper as increase the PNIPAm grating percentage.