Characterization of Xanthan gum-based hydrogel with Fe3+ ions coordination and its reversible sol-gel conversion

Since redox-responsive hydrogels have a wide range of applications especially in biochemistry, such as drug release and biosensors, a kind of redox-responsive hydrogel was fabricated based on iron which has two stable oxidation states, while xanthan gum (XG) was selected as a matrix. In this work, characterization of XG-based hydrogel with Fe3+ ions coordination and its reversible sol-gel conversion property were studied. Xanthan gum solutions with different concentrations were coordinated in situ with constant trivalent iron ions concentration to form hydrogels under ambient temperature. The chemical features of XG-based hydrogels were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and ultraviolet visible light spectrum (UV-vis), while scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observed the morphologies of XG-based hydrogels cross-sections. In…