Research Article
Irfan Hussain Lone, E. Kowsaly
Abstract
Alginate, a naturally occurring anionic polymer obtained from brown algae has been used for many biomedical applications. Natural fibres comprising of polysaccharides, have been used due to their biocompatibility, nontoxicity, and potential bioactivity at the wound surface. Many commercial wound dressing products such as retention bandages, support and compression bandages, absorbents, gauzes, tulle dressings and wound dressing pads are made from such natural polymers and their derivatives, produced from woven cellulose fibres. The present study was carried out to extract alginate from brown algae namely, Sargassum sp collected from Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu. About 350 g of alginate fibre was obtained from 500 g of fresh algae.