Synthesis of Gum tragacanth and acrylic acid based hydrogel: its evaluation for controlled release of antiulcerative drug pantoprazole sodium

In this work, natural polymer was used as matrix for preparing hydrogel to improve the performance of the material in biomedical sector. Gum tragacanth and acrylic acid [Gt-cl-poly(AA)] based hydrogel was prepared by graft copolymerization of natural Gum tragacanth with acrylic acid using ascorbic acid–potassium persulfate as an initiator and glutaraldehyde as cross-linker. Synthesized hydrogel was evaluated as a device for colon-specific controlled drug delivery. The results indicated that higher drug release was found at pH 9.2 followed by pH 7.0 and 2.0. Non-Fickian diffusion mechanism was exhibited at pH 9.2 and Case II diffusion mechanism was found in the case of pH 2.0 and 7.0.