Terahertz optical and mechanical properties of the gelatin-starch-glycerol-bentonite biopolymers

With the fast development of terahertz technology in medical diagnosis and monitoring, it has become important to investigate the application of THz radiation in the cancer treatment assessment during the therapy. In this paper, a buccal drug delivery system is studied as the first step towards this application. The drug delivery system is based on a gelatin-starch biopolymer matrix filled with plasticizing glycerol and various contents of reinforcing particles of bentonite clay. The biopolymers were subjected to morphology analysis using optical microscopy, analysis of mechanical tensile properties, and analysis of terahertz optical properties, followed by a theoretical approach of the experiment. The results show a visible effect of the bentonite content on both of the mechanical and terahertz optical properties of the biopolymer. These findings allow us to confirm the feasibility of using THz radiation for cancer assessment during therapies. The proposed biopolymer also has the potential to be applied as a substrate when carrying out in-vivo optical property measurement of biotissue in terahertz frequency range.