Exploring the effect of formulation parameters on the particle size of carboxymethyl chitosan nanoparticles prepared via reverse micellar crosslinking

Abstract

Carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCh), as a non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable semi-synthetic biopolymer with mucoadhesive properties, is widely investigated for targeting drug or gene delivery applications. Here, fabrication of CMCh nanoparticles will be reported using a reverse (w/o) micellar system to provide particles with tuneable mean sizes. Reverse microemulsions were prepared by dispersing aqueous solution of CMCh in n-hexane using sodium-bis(ethylhexyl)-sulfosuccinate (AOT) and glutaraldehyde (GA) as an emulsifier and a crosslinking agent, respectively. The obtained particles were perfectly spherical in the nanometric size range (40–140 nm) with a narrow size distribution according to the FE-SEM images. To determine the effective parameters on the mean nanosphere size, CMCh, AOT and GA concentrations were varied according to a full-factorial, three-level design-of-experiments. After evaluating the results, it was found that AOT and CMCh concentrations had a significant effect on the mean nanosphere size while GA concentration surprisingly showed non-significant, minor effects on the same response.

Keywords:

• Carboxymethyl chitosan
• reverse micellar crosslinking
• nanoparticles
• experimental design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors express their sincere gratitude to Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute (IPPI) for providing financial support to this research [contract grant number: 23761112].