Pectin‐Based Biocomposite Materials for Biomedical and Cosmetic Applications

Pectin is a naturally occurring biopolymer of complex heteropolysaccharides that consist of residues of (1, 4)-linked α- d -galacturonic acid along with several neutral sugars, including rhamnose, arabinose, and galactose. Pectin is widely applicable in many fields because of some of its unique properties such as gelling, stabilizing, emulsifying, non-hazardousness, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. Because of these multipurpose properties of pectin, the pectin-based composite materials are easily processed and applied significantly in diversified fields such as biomedical, drug delivery, industrial, tissue engineering, cosmetics, and food packaging. The characteristics of pectin can be modified by enhancing its quality by blending, forming derivatives, and making composites. More than 30% of the vascular plants contain proteins, which function as the cementing agent in the cellulosic network, performing as a god-stabilized gel. The biopolymer pectin has good capability of producing eco-friendly and biodegradable composite material for reinforcement with synthetic or natural polymeric materials. Pectin is always reinforced by the biopolymers hydroxyapatite (HA) and biphasic (Ca) 3 (PO 4 ) 2 and forms a new novel material, which is highly effective in the application of tissue engineering and bone regeneration. Pectin-based composite materials can also be used as an effective biosorbent for removal of copper from aqueous solutions. Since pectin and pectin-based composite materials exhibit good gelling properties, they can therefore be effectively used in the different pharmaceutical industries as a drug delivery carrier in the gastrointestinal tract of our body mainly gel beads, film-coated dosage forms, and matrix tablets to reduce obesity. The pectin-based composite materials are highly effective in controlling and regulating different kinds of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, and help to anticipate actual epidemics.