(429c) Design of Electrosprayed Polysaccharides Nano/Microparticles for Drug and Vaccine Delivery

Polysaccharides are natural polymers that are attractive for a variety of applications because of their renewability and biocompatability. Particles prepared from polysaccharides are of interest as carriers for controlled release in food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and as platforms for biosensing in environmental and biomedical fields. Electro-hydrodynamic atomization or electrospraying is an attractive process, in terms of controllability and scalability, for synthesizing such particles. The objective of our study was to investigate the effects of individual factors in the preparation of polysaccharide particles by the electrospray process on the particle size and shape using factorial design and response surface methodology. Two types of polysaccharides, namely the anionic alginate and the cationic chitosan, were investigated. The response surface method (RSM) experiments were conducted for sodium alginate based on the results of the one-half fractional-factorial design with five factors (flowrate, voltage, polymer concentration, collection distance, and surface tension of the collection medium) and two levels (low, high). The microgel particle size of sodium alginate was found to be primarily dependent on the polymer concentration, flowrate, and applied voltage. Formation of non-spherical particles was also observed for certain molecular weights of the polymer. Similar experiments were performed with for chitosan, with molecular weight of chitosan, polymer concentration, acetic acid concentration, solution flowrate, voltage, nozzle diameter and collection distance as factors. Toward the development of a process for protein-encapsulation, electrospraying of protein–chitosan polyelectrolyte complexes were studied. Bovine serum albumin was used as a representative low-isoelectric-point protein. Split-plot RSM with seven factors was conducted to understand the effects on particle size and protein encapsulation efficiency.

References:

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