Two birds with one stone: Multifunctional ionic liquid based polymeric hydrogel as decontaminant and vehicle for drug delivery

Designing multifunctional hydrogel through integrating more than one property into a single hydrogel is challenging. To impart the hydrophilicity for biological applications and environment protection as well as sufficient elasticity and optimizable rigidity to the polymeric hydrogel, herein we have added biocompatible, and biodegradable ionic liquid, choline oleate as the substrate in the polymeric hydrogel. The multifunctional hybrid hydrogel was formed as a result of intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the components involved. The hydrogel have porous-like morphology with the average aggregate size of 1363.97 nm, determined through AFM and DLS measurements. The hydrogel could withstand upto 5.5 % strain at a fixed frequency of 1 rad/s and at controlled strain value of 0.1 %, the colloidal particles that form a 3D branched solid-like network within the polymeric hydrogel are stable upto the 70 rad/s. The designed hydrogel was utilised as the decontaminant and drug delivery vehicle because of its excellent recoverability, adhesiveness, water retention capability and in vitro degradability. Further, in vitro biocompatibility of hydrogel on normal human cells L-132 cells was investigated, and the cell viability was observed 92 % even after 48 h. Selective accumulation of the cationic dye from the mixture of dyes and improved encapsulation ability for curcumin (∼12,000 times more than water) and its sustained release makes the multifunctional hydrogel an important candidate in the field of decontamination and drug delivery. Therefore, this work establishes an innovative, low-cost, easy to prepare, pH responsive, sustainable solution not only for the selective adsorption of cationic dyes but also for the sustained delivery of hydrophobic drug like curcumin.