Cotton Cellulose-Derived Hydrogel and Electrospun Fiber as Alternative Material for Wound Dressing Application

Abstract

Cotton has been recognized as a useful biomaterial over decades, and it has been widely applied in the textile industry. However, a large amount of cotton waste is generated during the manufacturing processes, but it has been considered as a low-value product. With high content of cellulose remaining in cotton waste, our study focuses on transforming cotton cellulose into a valuable product. Cellulose was extracted from cotton waste and modified into two main materials for wound dressing application: hydrogel-based water absorbent materials and electrospun composite nanofibers. In order to enhance the water absorption, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), the modified cellulose with functional group prone to interact with water molecules, has been developed in this study. The hydrogel-based CMC was created by using the chemical cross-linking reaction of epichlorohydrin (ECH). The hydrogel demonstrated the swelling and reswelling ability by 1718 ± 137% and 97.95 ± 9.76%, respectively. Meanwhile, cellulose/PEG in trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) was successfully fabricated as nonwoven composite by a conventional electrospinning technique. The fabrics provided highly appropriated properties as wound dressing, including the following: water absorption was up to 1300 times and water vapor permeability controlled in the range of 2163–2285 g·m−2·day−1. This showed the preliminary information for recovering cotton waste into valuable products.

Research on the construction and properties of waste cotton cellulose/carbon dots composite antibacterial hydrogel

“…( 6) Mechanical performance test: The hydrogel was taken and tested for compressive mechanical properties in UTM-1422 universal testing machine at a compression rate of 2 mm/min. (7) Swelling property test: After lyophilizing the hydrogel, the weight of the dry gel was m0, and then it was put into a beaker containing 50 mL of distilled water, and the swelling performance test was carried out at 37°C. The hydrogel was taken out and weighed at intervals mt, and it was noted that the water on the hydrogel surface had to be sucked out before each weighing.…”

“…However, due to the difference of cellulose varieties, it is difficult to realize the secondary utilization of cotton cellulose, no matter it is physical processing or chemical processing [4,5]. In order to achieve the recycling and reuse of waste cotton fibers, converting the cellulose into hydrogel is one of the important ways of recycling and reusing waste cotton [6,7].Cellulose, as one of the most abundant natural polymers with good biocompatibility and degradability [8], is the best choice for hydrogel matrix, with two main advantages: (1) possessing a three-dimensional flexible network structure capable of encapsulating a high concentration of various guest molecules and nanoparticles [9,10]; (2) the abundance of hydroxyl groups on cellulose provides feasibility of synthesizing hydrogel with multiple structures [11]. Therefore, cellulose bases hydrogel are valuable sustainable materials with important potential applications in biomedical fields such as cell therapy, wound healing, tissue transplantation, regenerative technologies and cellular drug delivery carriers [12][13][14].…”