Faculty Collaboration Database

Solubilization of chitosan in biologically relevant solvents by a low-temperature solvent-exchange method for developing biocompatible chitosan materials. Int J Biol Macromol 2024 Jan;254(Pt 3):127950

Date

11/12/2023

Pubmed ID

37951431

Pubmed Central ID

PMC10843559

DOI

10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.127950

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85177177901 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   14 Citations

Abstract

Chitosan has great potential for biomedical applications. However, the intractable solubility of chitosan is a major bottleneck hampering its utilization. In this work, we report a low-temperature solvent-exchange method to solubilize chitosan in biologically relevant solvents (bio-solvents) including water, salines, and cell culture media. Chitosan was firstly dissolved in ionic liquid (IL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate (EMIM Ac). The chitosan/IL solution was then dialyzed against bio-solvents at 4 °C, during which a solvent exchange process took place. At the end of 24 h dialysis, aqueous chitosan pseudosolutions formed. Low temperature is found to be crucial for efficient solubilization of chitosan during the solvent exchange process. Increasing temperature to 50 °C leads to the formation of solid chitosan hydrogel. Chitosan in the water-based pseudosolution presents as positively charged particles. The pseudosolution shows a high positive zeta potential of about +52.6 mV and good colloidal stability. The water-based pseudosolutions with different amounts of chitosan contents exhibit the rheological features of weak liquid gels. By using these pseudosolutions, the fabrication of various chitosan materials is realized readily. Both chitosan pseudosolution and its downstream products are highly biocompatible. In this strategy, using IL as a solvent-medium and processing a low-temperature solvent exchange are the two key parameters to solubilize chitosan.

Author List

Li B, Qiu L, Zhang J, Liu S, Xu M, Wang J, Yang H

Author

Hu Yang PhD Chair, Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Biocompatible Materials
Chitosan
Ionic Liquids
Renal Dialysis
Solvents
Temperature
Water