ORIGINAL PAPER Radiation crosslinking polymerization of poly (vinyl alcohol) and poly (ethylene glycol) with controlled drug release Mustafa Abu Ghalia 1 & Yaser Dahman 1 Received: 22 June 2015 /Accepted: 15 October 2015 /Published online: 24 October 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The aim of this work was to develop novel polyvi- nyl alcohol (PVA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) blends hydrogels via solution casting technique followed by γ- irradiation technique to crosslink and form a hydrogel material that contains a certain amount of water when the solution polymer was exposed to γ-radiation at a small dose rate at ambient temperature. The formation of the PVE: PEG cross- linked structure was confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurement. The degree of swelling increased with increases in PVA content in the PVA-PEG mixed gel. The drug released from the gel material was exam- ined using drug model sodium sulfate. The drug release be- havior from the hydrogel networks was influence by the PVA- PEG ratio in the hydrogel preparation. The released amount was influenced dramatically by the ratio of PVA in the initial feed. The kinetic of the drug released from the hydrogels in general was a non-Fickian diffusion type (anomalous) mech- anisms, whereas the process is moderately affected by the viscoelastic relaxation of the chains through water penetration. The thermal stability behavior of the hydrogel was demon- strated by thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), the tensile strength and compressive strength were found to be increased with increasing PEG content under induced γ-radiation. Furthermore, biodegradability of the PVA: PEG polymer blends were estimated in phosphate buffer solutions (PBS) under different pH values and enzymatic solution at pH 7.4 through weight loss monitoring. The results indicated that the biodegradation was increased as a function of PEG content decreased. The gamma ray crosslinking of the PVA: PEG blend hydrogel can be a good candidate for applications in a drug career. Keywords Poly (vinly alcohol) . Poly (ethylene glycol) . γ-irradiation technique . Drug delivery Introduction Hydrogels are hydrophilic macromolecular networks that are physically or chemically cross-linked, which allows the struc- tures to swell in an aqueous environment and have been ex- tensively applied in different application fields from intelli- gent carriers in controlled drug delivery systems to tissue en- gineering approaches [1–3]. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a hydrogel that has highly swollen biocompatible matrices and is approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) material with varied uses in the pharmaceutical and medical fields [4]. Its biocompatibility, tendency to absorb water, and flexibility make it one of the most widely used synthetic hydrogels. Additionally, PEG hydrogels have been used as drug carriers [5, 6]. Poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) must be cross-linked in order to be useful for a wide variety of applications, specifi- cally in the areas of medicine and pharmaceutical science. PVA exhibits inferior mechanical properties, which can be improved by blending with other mechanically relative strong polymers. A wide range of materials properties can be obtain- ed by merely changing the blend composition. Hydrogels based on PVA/PEG create unique opportunities to control bio- degradability for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications [7], due to the advantages of the nontoxic, non-carcinogenic, and enhanced thermal stability of the hydrogel that indicate both PVA and PEG are cross-linked through a hydrogen bond (Fig. 1)[8, 9]. In general, the irradiation of polymer blends is a * Yaser Dahman mabughal@ryerson.ca 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada J Polym Res (2015) 22: 218 DOI 10.1007/s10965-015-0861-9