Biodegradable Tragacanth Gum Based Silver Nanocomposite Hydrogels and Their Antibacterial Evaluation

In this article, biodegradable tragacanth gum (TG) biopolymer based silver nanocomposite hydrogels (SNCHs) were prepared with acrylamide as monomer using a simple redox polymerization method. TG acts as stabilizer to produce uniform and large silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) in presence of Terminalia chebula (TC) leaf extract in the hydrogel network. Forier transform infrared spectroscopy demonstrated the structural units of functional groups of polymeric backbone of the hydrogels. The formation of Ag-NPs in TG based hydrogels was confirmed by UV-Vis spectra. The morphology of homogeneously dispersed Ag-NPs throughout hydrogel networks was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. TEM analysis indicates that Ag-NPs with average diameters of around 5 nm formed within the hydrogel networks. The evaluation of antibacterial activity of Ag-NPs performed against gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Bacillus subtilis bacteria and obtained results proved that these newly developed hydrogels have great potential for use in wound healing as well as water purification applications.