Structural characteristics of oxidized scleroglucan and its network

The controlled oxidation of scleroglucan was performed with sodium periodat e to prepare scleraldehyde, which was utilized for further crosslinking rea ction with hexamethylenediamine. The structural characterization of scleral dehyde and its hydrogel was attempted by small-angle X-ray scattering in or der to obtain deeper information and more general criteria for the preparat ion of drug delivery systems. Although scleraldehyde with lower degree of o xidation than 20% retains a triple-stranded helical conformation, a triple- stranded chain was found to disentangle in single chains with increasing th e degree of oxidation. The hydrogel prepared from scleraldehyde consisted m ostly of the crosslinked domains formed by multiple single chains aligned i n parallel. The crosslinked domains were linked by disentangled single chai ns and distributed in random to form a network. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science L td. All rights reserved.