Chitosan Biocides
“Chitosan's properties also allow it to be used in trans-dermal drug delivery. One of these properties is that it is mucoadhesive in nature. Another property that is important to chitosan's ability to aid in drug delivery is that it is fairly reactive so it can be produced in many different forms. The most important property of chitosan with regards to drug delivery is its positive charge under acidic conditions. This positive charge comes from protonation of its free amino groups. Lack of a positive charge means chitosan is insoluble in neutral and basic environments. However, in acidic environments, protonation of the amino groups leads to an increase in solubility. The implications of this are very important to biomedical applications. This is a molecule that will maintain its structure in a neutral environment but will solubilize and degrade in an acidic environment. This means that chitosan can be used to transport a drug to an acidic environment, where the chitosan packaging will then degrade, releasing the drug to the desired environment. One example of this drug delivery has been seen in the transport of insulin” (Wikipedia, Chitosan, 2/11/2011)
Recent Journal Articles
Antibacterial and Physiochemical Behavior of Prepared Chitosan/pyridine-3,5-di-carboxylic Acid Complex for Biomedical Applications
(246 – 253) Journal of Macromolecular Science Part A - Pure and Applied Chemistry 48 #3 (2011)
Singh and Dutta of the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology,, India prepared a biocompatible electrostatic chitosan/pyridine-3,5-di-carboxylic acid (CH-PyCA) complex which is formed by the protonation (NH+3) of chitosan and deprotonation (COO-) of pyridine-3,5-di-carboxylic acid in an acidic medium under mild conditions. The results show that the CH-PyCA complex might be a promising candidate for novel antimicrobial agents for biomedical applications. (RDC 2/21/2011)