Formulation of a developed wound dressing containing chitosan, poly (N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone), and carbopol.

A wound dressing is an important element tailored for wound care. The wound dressing should protect the wound from the environmental conditions, absorb wound fluids, as well as provide the moisture for healing the wound. Recently, many wound dressings are available in the medical products market. Despite the substantial advancements in the wound dressings manufacturing, no single material can produce ideal dressing for all wounds and for all the wound healing process stages. In that research work chitosan (CS)/ poly (vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP)/ carbopol® (CP) wound dressing was prepared through treating non-woven cotton fabric samples with different CS/PVP blends as polycations followed by crosslinking with CP as polyanions. Factors affecting the prepared CS/PVP/CP dressing formation such as CS/PVP weight ratio, CP concentration, and number of coating layers were studied. The results indicated that the best CS/PVP weight ratio is 50/50 from the percent swelling, tensile strength, stiffness, and air permeability points of view. Moreover, increasing of the CP concentration results in a gradual increasing in percent swelling, tensile strength, and stiffness in addition to a lowering in air permeability of the CS/PVP/CP dressing. Furthermore, increasing of the coating layers of the CS/PVP/CP dressing brings about a significant increasing the percent swelling, tensile strength, and stiffness accompanied but reduces the air permeability of such dressing. Moreover, incorporation of either clove oil or silver nano-particles (Ag-NPs) in formulation of such dressing leads to an enhancement in the antibacterial properties of such dressing. Furthermore, combining of clove oil with Ag-NPs in the CS/PVP/CP dressing formulation upgrades the antibacterial properties of such dressing. The CS/PVP/CP dressing containing the clove oil and Ag-NPs was characterized via SEM and EDX analysis.