Cross-linking with acid chlorides improves thermal and mechanical properties of collagen based biopolymer material

The present study demonstrates preparation and characterization of biopolymer materials with appreciable thermal stability and mechanical strength. Interacting acid chlorides (terephthaloyl chloride (TCL)) with reconstituted collagen provided biopolymer material with said property. Characterization studies revealed the chosen acid chloride increases the mechanical properties assessed in terms of Youngʹs modulus as 6 fold times compared to native collagen for the TCL concentration of 0.2%. And also demonstrate high thermal stability upto 300 °C with out any loss of weight (%) and only 25% weight loss after 420 °C and no further weight loss till 800 °C. Further, the interaction did not change the helical pattern of collagen as evidenced through circular dichroism analysis. In addition, biocompatibility (cell toxicity) studies on TCL cross-linked biopolymer material revealed no cell death when tested against skin fibroblast cells. The high thermal stability, mechanical strength and biocompatible properties make the TCL cross-linked biopolymer material highly suitable for various applications.