Rapid and Efficient Route for Chitosan Blends with Fish Collagen and Aloe Vera Exudate

Abstract

Biomaterials based on chitosan (CS), in combination with other biopolymers such as collagen (CL) and aloe vera (AV), are of interest to medicine as well as the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, with a wide range of applications in those fields due to their characteristics of non-toxicity, biocompatibility, low cost and biodegradability. The combination of chitosan and those biopolymers has been frequently used as ointments for burns and other skin injuries. In this work, the selective precipitation and co-precipitation techniques were used to prepare and characterize chitosan blends combined with different portions of fish collagen and aloe vera biopolymers. The employed methods are simple, fast and safe, and require minimal infrastructure and prioritize the interaction between the biopolymers or their miscibility, with no segregated phases observed in the obtained blends. The syntheses were analyzed according to their yields, 4-hydroxyproline content (in CS/CL blends), and the materials were characterized by bromatological analyses (CS, CL, and AV), viscosity, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The experimental results have confirmed the occurrence of spontaneous interactions between the biopolymers through the formation of blends, which exhibited individual characteristics proportional to the variation of biopolymers in chitosan, thus indicating the efficiency of the syntheses routes.