Mesoporous starch aerogels production as drug delivery matrices: synthesis optimization, ibuprofen loading, and release property.

Akbar Mohammadi,Jafarsadegh Moghaddas

doi:10.3906/kim-1912-18

Abstract

The aim of this work was to prepare biodegradable starch aerogels as drug carriers. The effective parameters in the synthesis and the optimal values of these parameters were determined using Minitab experimental design software. Ibuprofen was selected as a model drug for the dissolution study and loaded into optimized aerogel during the last solvent exchange step. The Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis showed that ibuprofen has been successfully loaded into the aerogel matrix without any effect on the aerogel nature. The drug loading was calculated to be 29%. The isotherm of ibuprofen adsorption into aerogels matrices followed from the Freundlich isotherm. The in vitro release tests of crystalline ibuprofen and ibuprofen-loaded potato starch aerogel were investigated with simulated gastric and intestinal fluids in USP 2 apparatus. It was shown that the dissolution rate of ibuprofen could be dramatically changed. Also, an improvement in the dissolution rate of ibuprofen was achieved by performing the dissolution test first in the gastric medium for 120 min and then in the intestinal medium for up to 270 min. A higher release rate (100%) was observed at the end of the in vitro experiment.

Highlights

Aerogels are the lightest porous solid nanomaterials produced by the 2-stages sol-gel method through substitution of liquid in gel pores with air [1,2]
The aims of this work are to optimize the synthesis of potato starch aerogels, to load optimized aerogels with ibuprofen in order to improve its solubility and bioavailability, to characterize the drug-loaded and unloaded aerogels, to study the adsorption isotherm, and to determine the loading capacity of ibuprofen
Gel preparation is one of the vital stages in the sol-gel process as the characteristics of synthesized aerogels highly depend on the gelation step

Summary

Introduction

Aerogels are the lightest porous solid nanomaterials produced by the 2-stages sol-gel method through substitution of liquid in gel pores with air [1,2]. Of biomedical applications of aerogels are related to drug delivery [13]. Biocompatibility and biodegradability are highly necessary in drug delivery applications due to their direct relationship with human health. Silica aerogels possess interesting properties including biocompatibility, but they are not biodegradable and may be harmful for in vivo applications. For this reason, their use in biomedical applications has been limited [11,14,15]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion