Influence of Vertical Diffusion Cell Set-Up on <i>In Vitro</i> Silver Sulfadiazine Drug Release from Thermo-Responsive Cellulose Hydrogel

Abstract

In-vitro drug release is used to measure the release of the silver sulfadiazine (SSD) from thermo-responsive cellulose hydrogel using a vertical diffusion cell (VDC). However, selected VDC set-up used by researchers are random, and the studies are lacking in information on the challenging sink conditions during in-vitro drug release study. The objective of this study is to examine the influence of VDC set-up on the in-vitro SSD drug release from thermo-responsive cellulose hydrogel. VDC set-up including receptor medium composition, membrane type, and stirring speed were studied. The results depicted that SSD release rate increased with increasing ammonia percentage in phosphate buffer solution. On the other hand, membrane type do not influence SSD release rate. While, increasing stirring speed results in forming vortex or air bubble entrapment underneath the membrane. 0.25 v/v% ammonia receptor medium, cellulose membrane or polysulfone membrane, and 600 rpm stirring speed are the optimum VDC set-up, confirming sink condition and discriminating ability of this optimum VDC set-up. This work has successfully studied the influence of VDC set-up on in-vitro SSD drug release from thermo-responsive cellulose hydrogel, and the optimum VDC set-up was selected.