Swelling behavior of cross-link PVA with glutaraldehyde

The polymeric hydrogels composed of poly vinyl alcohol (m.wt 72000) and glutaraldehyde (5 %,8 % and 10 %), have been thermally prepared for the purpose of studying their swelling and drug release behavior . The swelling ratio was measured for all the hydrogel samples at 37°C, in three different media pH (1.2, 4.7 and 6.8) as a function of time. The results show that the maximum swelling ratios were arranged as follows : pH = 6.8 > pH = 4.7 > pH = 1.2 hydrogels cross linked PVA showed a typical pH responsive behavior such as high pH has maximum swelling while low pH shows minimum swelling.