Effects of Surfactants and Lipids on the Preparation of Solid Lipid Nanoparticles Using Double Emulsion Method

Abstract

In this article, double emulsion method was used to prepare solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN). Different kinds of SLN were synthesized by changing the species and contents of lipids and surfactants in microemulsion. The effects of the hydrophobic chain length of surfactant inside and surfactant outside, the type of lipid and the ratio of Span/Tween on SLN were systematically investigated. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential were applied to study the change trend of particle size and surface charge of SLN. The DLS results show that the size of SLN increases as the hydrophobic chain length of lipid enhances, and decreases with the increase of hydrophobic chain length of Tween or that of Span or the ratio of Span/Tween. And the absolute value of zeta potential as well as the stability of SLN dispersion decreases as the hydrophobic chain length of Span or lipid increases, and increases when the hydrophobic chain length of Tween or the ratio of Span/Tween increases.

Keywords:

• Double emulsion method
• solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN)
• Span
• Tween

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Natural Scientific Foundation of Shandong Province of China (Z2007B03, Z2007B06), the Doctoral Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (New Teachers Fund (070422047), and the Opening Fund of Key Laboratory of Colloid & Interface Chemistry, Ministry of Education, Shandong University of China (200704).