Synthesis and study of rheological properties of tragacanth-based systems cured with different crosslinking agents

Gum Tragacanth (GT) has the ability to create hydrogels for various applications such as drug delivery systems. To strengthen and increase the durability of the hydrogels inwater, crosslinking or graft polymerization should be used. Despite the importance of this issue a few studies have beencarried out on the crosslinking of tragacanth [1-3]. In previous studies, GT has been crosslinked by the use of some crosslinkers such as gelatin and glutaraldehyde [1,3]. Inthis study the cross-linking of GT is performed by borax and polyethylene glycol diacrylate. The degree of swelling, therheological and drug release behavior of this hydrogel have been investigated. Due to low toxicity, and low cost of borax as an industrial crosslinker and its high speed crossliking in the case of tragacanth, Therefore we chose to use borax in this work.