Producing xylan/Eudragit® S100-based microparticles by chemical and physico-mechanical approaches as carriers for 5-aminosalicylic acid

Abstract

Xylan is a biopolymer found in a variety of cell wall plants. Eudragit® S-100 (ES100), a pH-dependent polymer, is used as a coating material in gastroresistant delivery systems. In this study, microparticles based on both polymers were produced by interfacial cross-linking polymerisation and/or spray-drying technique in order to investigate feasibility and stability of the systems. Size and morphology of the microparticles were characterised by optical and SEM while FT-IR, thermal analysis (TG/DTA), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) evaluated the drug–polymer interactions and the thermal behaviour of the systems. FT-IR confirmed the absence of chemical interaction between the polymers. TG/DTA analysis showed a higher stability for spray-dried microparticles and XRD data proved the amorphous feature of both carriers. The results reveal that xylan/ES100 microparticles can be produced by chemical or physico-mechanical ways, the latter being the best option due to the lack of toxic cross-linking agents and easy scale-up.

• Cross-linking
• infrared spectroscopy
• polymer--biopolymer interaction
• spray-drying
• thermal analysis

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by CNPq and CAPES. The authors are grateful to Prof. Dr Josue Mendes from the Universidade Federal do Ceará, and Prof. Dr Arnóbio Antonio Silva-Júnior from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, for the thermogravimetric analysis; and CTPETRO-INFRA I and FINEP/LIEM for the SEM images and XRD analysis. The authors also thank Glenn Hawes, from the University of Georgia – American Language Program, for editing this article.