Chitosan/PVA hydrogels incorporated with green synthesized cerium oxide nanoparticles for wound healing applications

In this paper, we report the synthesis and evaluation of a polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan (PVA/chitosan) hydrogel incorporated with green synthesized cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2-NPs) using a Zingiber officinale extract as the reducing, capping and stabilizer agent for wound healing applications. The PVA/chitosan/CeO2-NPs hydrogel was synthesized via the freeze-thaw technique with 0 to 1% (wt) 5 nm CeO2-NPs. Results revealed that the hydrogels containing 0.5% of CeO2-NPs showed better antibacterial activities after just 12 hr (with MRSA but not E. coli) and healthy human dermal fibroblast viabilities up to 5 days (more than 90%) compared to the control group. Therefore, these chitosan/PVA hydrogels incorporated with Ce-NPs could be a potential candidate as a robust wound dressing agent that impressively may decrease wound infections without resorting to the use of antibiotics.