Fabrication of cellulose carbamate hydrogel-dressing with rarasaponin surfactant for enhancing adsorption of silver nanoparticles and antibacterial activity.

Bacterial contamination on external wounds is known to be a factor that prevents wound healing and triggers tissue damage. Hydrogel-dressings with antibacterial activity is a useful medical device to avoid this contamination, wherein the antibacterial activity can be provided via incorporation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Contrary to the conventional two-step preparation of an AgNPs-loaded hydrogel (AgNPs@hydrogel), this work aims to establish a new and facile synthesis method employing the adsorption principle. Once AgNO3 adsorbed into active sites of the hydrogels, in situ reductions using NaBH4 was employed to produce AgNPs@hydrogel. The effect of surfactant addition on the AgNO3 loading and the antibacterial activity of the resulting hydrogel dressing was investigated. The outcome of this work indicates that the addition of rarasaponin not only can increase the loading of AgNPs on cellulose carbamate hydrogel (CCH) but also significantly enhance the antibacterial activity of the resulted hydrogel-dressing. Superior to the other studied surfactant, the loading capacity (LC) of AgNPs is found to be 10.15, 9.94, and 7.53 mg/g for CCH modified with rarasaponin, CTAB, and Tween80, respectively. These findings conclude that the addition of surfactant, especially rarasaponin, can effectively improve the loading of AgNPs onto hydrogel-dressing via adsorption and promote the antibacterial activity. Furthermore, the cytotoxic test shows that the hydrogel-dressings have good biocompatibility toward skin fibroblast cells.