G. Sailakshmi, Tapas Mitra, Swaraj Sinha
Jul 13, 2012
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0
Influential Citations
6
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Journal
Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part A
Abstract
The natural polysaccharide chitosan and the natural protein collagen are widely used for the preparation of biopolymer materials in the presence of suitable crosslinkers. In this study, crosslinking feasibility of a dicarboxylic acid, namely suberic acid was tested using chitosan and collagen and in addition, thermal and mechanical properties were also tested for the resulting biopolymers. A 3D scaffold biopolymer material was prepared using chitosan at 1.0% (w/v) in the presence of suberic acid at 0.2% (w/v), similarly collagen 0.5% (w/v) in the presence of suberic acid 0.2% (w/v). Upon interaction, both the biopolymers displayed appreciable mechanical and thermal properties which add value to the biopolymers for biomedical applications. Molecular docking studies suggests the non-covalent interactions between the natural polymers and suberic acid is the reason behind the improved properties.