Tailored polyvinyl alcohol-based composites with natural additives for biomedical and soft contact lens applications

• PVA composites were enhanced with aloe vera, rose water, boric acid, and gallic acid. • RW/PVA showed highest water content while BA/PVA had superior mechanical strength. • GA/PVA showed strongest antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activity. • BA/PVA displayed highest antifungal potential in inhibition zone tests. • Developed PVA composites are multifunctional candidates for soft contact lenses. Different types of microbial infections and inflammations are related with the extended usage of Soft Contact Lenses (SCLs). In order to evaluate the effect of additives having biological importance we incorporated the Aloe vera gel (AV), rose water (RW), boric acid (BA), andgallic acid(GA)as additives to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) aqueous solution of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), using heat-cast technology to obtain the PVA-based composite materials suitable for the SCLs and characterizedby, Fourier transform-Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy(EDX). According to FT-IR, XRD, SEM, and EDX outcomesa little variation is shown in each composite material confirming the additives incorporation and successful preparation.Percent water content andmechanical strength analysis were evaluated, in which the RW/PVA composite showed maximum content of water up to 86.03% while the BA/PVA composite showed enhanced stiffness among all materials, with tensile strength and Young's modulus of 34.98 MPa, 6.14±0.1 GPa, respectively.Moreover, the as-prepared materials were studied for their anti-microbiological activities (against Aspergillus niger , and Staphylococcus aureus ). Anti-inflammatory activity was also carried out to check the % membrane stabilization (%MS) of HRBCs. The BA/PVA composite validated the highest antifungal performance, with measured diameter of inhibition zone (DIZ) up to 13.5 mm. GA/PVA composite has the highest antibacterial and %MS capabilities with measured DIZ up to16.7 mmand %MS of46.85% at 100µg/mL.Our studies revealed that adding all of the abovementioned additives to PVA results in composite materials appropriate to be used as a SCLs, ensuring structural reliability, safety, and permanency.