A chitosan–α-naphthaldehyde hydrogel film containing pineapple leaf fibers for wound dressing applications†

In recent decades, polysaccharide-based hydrogels have gained significant attention due to their natural biocompatibility, biodegradability, and non-toxicity. The potential for using polysaccharides to synthesize hydrogels is due to their ability to support cell proliferation, which is important for practical applications, particularly in the biomedical field. In this study, we have synthesized a chitosan–α-naphthal hydrogel film using a cost-effective one-step synthesis approach. The prepared hydrogel film exhibited high encapsulation efficiency for antibacterial drugs such as ciprofloxacin and lomefloxacin, with the ability to release the antibiotics in a controlled manner over an extended period and prevent long-term bacterial infections. Moreover, the Korsmeyer and Peppas power law, based on Fickian diffusion, was employed to model the entire complex drug release process and predict the drug release behavior. The hydrogel film also shows pH-induced swelling ability due to the presence of an imine bond in the hydrogel network, which is degradable at acidic pH. The incorporated therapeutic agents having antibacterial activity were effective against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli DH5α) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus) bacterial strains. A wound dressing material should possess mechanical strength, but the prepared hydrogel film has low mechanical strength. To increase the mechanical strength, we have infused pineapple leaf fibers (PLFs) in the film network, resulting in a mechanical strength of 1.12 ± 0.89 MPa. In addition to its mechanical strength, significant cell viability against human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) cells was observed from in vitro cell culture experiments for this PLF-hydrogel film. As a result, the prepared therapeutic agent-loaded hydrogel film under study meets the requirements to be considered for use as a wound dressing material.