Bioactive and metal uptake studies of carboxymethyl chitosan-graft-D-glucuronic acid membranes for tissue engineering and environmental applications

Carboxymethyl chitosan-graft-D-glucuronic acid (CMCS-g-D-GA) was prepared by grafting D-GA onto CMCS in the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide(EDC) and then the membranes were made from it. In this work, the bioactivity studies Of CMCS-g-D-GA membranes were carried out and then characterized by SEM, CLSM, XRD and FT-IR. The CMCS-g-D-GA membranes were found to be bioactive. The adsorption of Ni2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+ ions onto CMCS-g-D-GA membranes has also been investigated. The maximum adsorption capacity of CMCS-g-D-GA for Ni2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+ was found to be 57, 56.4 and 70.2 mg/g, respectively. Hence, these membranes were useful for tissue engineering, environmental and water purification applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.