Development of gelatin/bacterial cellulose composite sponges as potential natural wound dressings

A novel BG composite sponge comprising of bacterial cellulose (BC) and gelatin has been synthesized using glutaraldehyde as the cross-linker by a facile method. The morphology, chemical composition and structures of the novel sponges were characterized by SEM, EDS and FTIR spectroscopy. The fabricated BG sponges have regular honeycomb-like structure with uniform pore distribution and large surface area. They have very high porosity of 94%-95% and great swelling property ranging from 3000 to 3150%. Moreover, the released rate of the model drug ampicillin (AP) from the composite sponges depends on the initial addition of AP that the diffusional constant (n) determined using Korsmeyer-Peppas model lies between 0.45 and 0.89, indicating the AP release from BG composite sponges follows non-Fickian diffusion. More interestingly, antibacterial activity of BG sponges was investigated by diffusion disk method against E.coli, C. albicans and S. aureus. The results demonstrated that the obtained BG sponges exhibit excellent antibacterial activity, thus making them have great potentials in various antibacterial applications, especially in the wound dressings.