Numerical Analysis of Temperature-Sensitive Hydrogels for Controlled Drug Release

Abstract

Today hydrogels are considered as the materials that are able to play important role in drug delivery systems. To design an effective hydrogel applicable network, mathematical modeling has a critical role. A successful drug delivery device relies not only on intelligent network design but also on accurate prior mathematical modeling of drug release profiles. In this study, the modeling of the inflation behavior of temperature-sensitive hydrogel has been done by providing a mathematical model according to the thermodynamics and kinetics of the temperature-sensitive gel and also considering the heat transfer into the hydrogels during the inflation. The proposed model has been investigated numerically. The comparison between numerical and experimental results shows perfectly success in integrating equations of inflation thermodynamics and kinetics for modeling the inflation behavior of temperature-sensitive hydrogels that provide a new step in the modeling of such systems.