A Mathematical Study on Effect of 2-Hydroxyl Ethyl Acrylate on Controlled Drug Diffusion from Smart Hydrogels Based on Poly(acrylamide-co-hydroxy ethyl acrylate-co-acrylic acid)

A series of poly (AM-co-HEA-co-AA) hydrogels have been synthesized and characterized by varying 2-hydroxy ethyl acrylate (HEA) content in the range of 0-16.22% in feed. The swelling ratio of resulting hydrogels was drastically decreased 10 times, i.e., from 101.12 to 9.23 in an almost linear fashion; but the dimensional stability of these hydrogels was increased significantly from 5 to 46 days with increasing HEA content. The hydrogels exhibited Smart nature in varying pH (2-10), temperature (15-65 degrees C), ionic strength of NaCl solution (0.1M-1.5M), and different cation chloride salt solution having same ionic strength (0.1M). The swelling mechanism was shifted from non-Fickian to Fickian (at pH 2-7), super case to non-Fickian (at pH 10) with increasing HEA content. The controlled release of model drug (salicylic acid) from these hydrogels was investigated using early-time, late-time and Etters diffusion models and compared with the experimental data. It was observed that early model doesn't fit, but Etter and late-time model fitted excluding the initial phase. However, it was also observed that with increasing HEA content, the applicability of Etter's model improved, and for 16.22% HEA containing hydrogel Etters model was fitted in the full range, indicating that by varying hydrogel composition, the diffusion characteristics can be altered.