Synthesis, Drying Process and Medical Application of Polysaccharide-Based Aerogels

Abstract

Aerogels are promisingly intended for the use in describing lighter solid materials with huge porous structures. The outcome of aerogels is of potential interest in biomedical purposes owing to many features such as high surface area, low density and porous structure, and so forth. There are numerous inorganic and organic materials employed in the preparation of aerogels. Many drying techniques are a fundamental part of their preparation such as supercritical, freeze-drying, vacuum, ambient pressure and microwave which have been utilized for drying the wet-gel via substitute the liquid inside the wet-gel pores with air. Three common lighter solid materials (i.e. aerogel, cryogel and xerogel) could be synthesized depending on the drying technique applied. This review focuses on aerogel definition, the steps for the preparation of aerogel, techniques used for drying the wet-gel platforms. Further it highlights the pros and cons of each drying technique for synthesizing a demanded material's properties. As polysaccharide considered as one of the most prominent biocompatible and environmentally friendly polymers used for their preparation, thus we will present some examples (e.g.; cellulose, chitosan, starch, alginate, carrageenan and curdlan) and finally the potential biomedical applications of polysaccharides-based aerogel are briefly emphasized.