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This work reports the preparation of hydrogels based on PVA-GMA, PVA-GMA is poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) functionalized with vinyl groups from glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), and on PVA-GMA with different content of chondroitin sulfate (CS). The degrees of swelling of PVA-GMA and PVA-GMA/CS hydrogels were evaluated in distilled water and the swelling kinetics was performed in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids (SGF and SIF). PVA-GMA and PVAGMA/CS hydrogels demonstrated to be resistant on SGF and SIF fluids. The elastic modulus, E, of swollen-hydrogels were determined through compressive tests and, according to the obtained results, the hydrogels presented good mechanical properties. At last, the presence of CS enhances the hydrogel cell compatibility as gathered by cytotoxicity assays. It was concluded that the hydrogels prepared through this work presented characteristics that allow them to be used as biomaterial, as a carrier in drug delivery system or to act as scaffolds in tissue engineering as well

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Abstract:The modification of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) in DMSO catalyzed by TEMED is reported in this paper. PVA was dissolved in DMSO and reacted with GMA at 30 ºC in a closed vessel under N 2 gas bubbling for 24 hours. The reaction was characterized by FTIR and NMR ( 1 H, 13C/DEPT and HETCOR) spectroscopies. The reaction occurs by transesterification through the insertion of methacryloyl groups into PVA chains and probably with the formation of glycidol as a by-product. The degree of substitution (DS) that represents the number of methacryloyl groups inserted was determined through 1 H NMR spectra based on the ratio between the averaged area due to the vinyl hydrogen from methacryloyl groups at δ  5.6 ppm and δ 6.0 ppm and the total area of the vinyl hydrogen and hydroxyl hydrogen of PVA. By use of response surface methodology the experimental conditions were optimized. The optimum conditions were 62 ºC with a reaction time of 6 hours. In these optimized conditions, the reactions using the molar ratios [-OH(PVA)/GMA] equal to 1/0.10, 1/0.25, 1/0.50, 1/0.75 and 1/1 were investigated. The response surface was based on the model , where T is the temperature (°C) and t the reaction time (hours). This model explained 99.20 % of the 99.64 % explainable statistical data. Using the optimized conditions, it is possible to produce a desired modified PVA, (or PVA-Ma), because DS raises linearly to the ratio [-OH(PVA)/GMA] up to 25 mol-% and the respective yield ranged from 83 to 92 %. It is difficult to obtain more than 50 mol-% substitution of PVA hydroxyl by methacryloyl groups even in these optimized conditions due to increased steric hindrance by the large number of the methacryloyl groups inserted into PVA.

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