Fabricating An Ionic Conductive-okra Based Hydrogel For Chronic Wound Healing

Abstract

It has been reported that nearly 6.5 million people in the United States suffer from at least one chronic wound in their lifetime. One of the community’s are affected by it are people with diabetes mellitus. Hydrogel wound dressing presents a promising option for due to its biodegradability, adhesivity, ability to retain moisture, and wound healing promotion. Furthermore, in literature, electrical stimulation has been mentioned to promote wound healing as well. Thus, we propose to design a device that accelerates wound healing. This project is divided into phases and phase 1 comprises synthesizing the ionic conductive hydrogel patch. Phase 2 comprises of the design and fabrication of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), and phase 3 comprises of executing in vivo and in vitro studies. In this phase, a polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel with various concentrations (0,5,10,15,20,30%) of LiCl was synthesized. Furthermore, another batch of PAM/LiCl were synthesized incorporating Okra mucilage. Both batches were compared. Conductivity and swelling properties were measured. Results showed that the LiCl concentration increases, the conductivity increases. However, interestingly, the swelling ratio did not increase as the LiCl concentration increased. This may be due to the solvent in which it was submerged.