Curcumin-loaded Butea monosperma gum-based hydrogel: A new excipient for controlled drug delivery and anti-bacterial applications.

The wide spectrum of applications provided by curcumin has attracted researchers worldwide to identify its molecular targets and employ it in various biomedical applications. The present research work focuses on the development of a Butea monosperma gum-based hydrogel encapsulated with curcumin and further employing it for two diverse applications, i.e., drug delivery and anti-bacterial application. A central composite design was utilized for the optimization of significant process variables to achieve maximum swelling. A maximum of 662 % swelling was attained at initiator (0.06 g), monomer (3 ml), crosslinker (0.08 g), solvent (14 ml), and time (60 s). Furthermore, the characterization of the synthesized hydrogel was performed via FTIR, SEM, TGA, H1-NMR, and XRD analysis. Various important properties like swelling rate under different solutions, water retention capacity, re-swelling capability, porosity, and density measurement suggested that the prepared hydrogel exhibited a highly stable crosslinked network with high porosity (0.23) and density (62.5 g/cm3) values. The encapsulation efficiency of curcumin in the hydrogel was reported to be 93 % and 87.3 %, respectively, wherein BM-g-poly(AA) âˆ¼ Cur exhibited excellent sustained pH-responsive site release of curcumin at two different pH values, with the maximum amount of release taking place at pH 7.4 (792 ppm) and a minimum at pH 5 (550 ppm) due to the lesser ionization of the functional groups present in the hydrogel at a lower pH value. Additionally, the results from the pH shock studies indicated our material to be stable and efficient even with fluctuations in pH, resulting in the optimal amount of drug release at each pH range. Furthermore, anti-bacterial studies revealed that the synthesized BM-g-poly(AA) âˆ¼ Cur was effective against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, with maximum values of zones of inhibition of 16 mm in diameter, thereby showing the best results in comparison to the already developed matrices till date. As a result, the newly discovered BM-g-poly(AA) âˆ¼ Cur properties reflect the hydrogel network's suitability for drug release and anti-bacterial applications.

A Review of Adsorbents for Heavy Metal Decontamination: Growing Approach to Wastewater Treatment.

Heavy metal is released from many industries into water. Before the industrial wastewater is discharged, the contamination level should be reduced to meet the recommended level as prescribed by the local laws of a country. They may be poisonous or cancerous in origin. Their presence does not only damage people, but also animals and vegetation because of their mobility, toxicity, and non-biodegradability into aquatic ecosystems. The review comprehensively discusses the progress made by various adsorbents such as natural materials, synthetic, agricultural, biopolymers, and commercial for extraction of the metal ions such as Ni2+, Cu2+, Pb2+, Cd2+, As2+ and Zn2+ along with their adsorption mechanisms. The adsorption isotherm indicates the relation between the amount adsorbed by the adsorbent and the concentration. The Freundlich isotherm explains the effective physical adsorption of the solute particle from the solution on the adsorbent and Langmuir isotherm gives an idea about the effect of various factors on the adsorption process. The adsorption kinetics data provide valuable insights into the reaction pathways, the mechanism of the sorption reaction, and solute uptake. The pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models were applied to describe the sorption kinetics. The presented information can be used for the development of bio-based water treatment strategies.

A rapid and non-destructive ATR-FTIR spectroscopy method supported by chemometrics for discriminating between facial creams and the classification into herbal and non-herbal brands.

Facial creams are considered to be essential beauty items and are used by both females and males on an everyday basis. These can be encountered as an evidentiary material in criminal investigations, particularly in cases related to sexual and physical assaults against women. These are found in trace amounts and therefore their analysis is difficult and also, it must be through non-destructive methods. In the present work ATR-FTIR spectroscopy was employed for the discrimination of 57 samples of face creams out of which 31 were non-herbal and 26 were from herbal category. Visual analysis of the obtained Spectra was done for discrimination purposes but the method was prone to human error and laborious too. The spectroscopic results were analyzed with PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and PLS-DA (Partial least square discriminant analysis) methods. A segregation of samples was seen in the PCA plots to some extent. The class separation and prediction of the samples was performed using PLS-DA method. A good classification was achieved between herbal and non-herbal samples using PLS-DA method. Further, validation of the model was also performed by testing 10 unknown samples.

Neem gum based pH responsive hydrogel matrix: A new pharmaceutical excipient for the sustained release of anticancer drug.

The present research work was aimed to synthesize neem gum-based site-specific drug delivery device for anticancer drug methotrexate at different pH condition. The hydrogel-based drug delivery device was synthesized by optimizing reaction parameters using a factorial design approach response surface method. This model comprised of various sets of reactions with varying concentrations of solvent, crosslinker, initiator and monomer under microwave radiation. Characterization of the candidate hydrogel was done using UV-visible spectrophotometer, FTIR, SEM, Raman, and XRD techniques. The release profile of the hydrogels network was studied through a methotrexate under different pH conditions. The drug encapsulation capacity was found to be around 93% and 90% in pH 7.4 and 6.8. Drug release through the synthesized hydrogel matrix was found to show non-Fickian behaviour at each medium. The hydrogel network showed less release in pH 6.8 than pH 7.4, suggesting that hydrogels may be suitable drug carriers for release of anticancer drug delivery system. Hemolysis testing was also done to check the compatibility of the synthesized drug delivery device with the four different blood samples. Hemolysis was found to be less than 1% in the case of all blood groups, which indicates that the synthesized candidate polymers are biocompatible with all blood groups.