Varronia verbenacea and Achyrocline satureioides essential oils in granules and microparticles: Stability and in vitro release studies

Abstract

Granules and microparticles containing essential oils from Varronia verbenacea and Achyrocline satureioides were prepared, dried and evaluated in vitro by measuring releasing profiles, particle size, oil load, density, humidity and water activity at time zero and 60 days after production. Comparisons were also made using hard gelatin capsules. Measurements showed a significant decrease in oil load for the spray-dried particles compared to granules, and the desiccator-dried granules proved to maintain the highest oil content over the 60-day period. Moreover, gelatin capsules reduced oil losses, which is expected to increase the shelf-life and maintain the biological activity of such preparations for pharmaceutical applications.

Keywords:

• Plants
• medicinal
• drug compounding
• lactose
• cellulose
• polysorbates
• in vitro techniques

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Espaço da Escrita PRP UNICAMP and AJE for orthographic correction, LRAC for the MEV analysis, ITAL for the particle size analysis (especially PhD Izabela Dutra Alvim), Adilson Sartoratto for the GC-MS analysis and Carolina Campos Maloper da Silva for the support.

Disclosure statement

The authors of this article have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank CAPES Grant no. 3370/2017 for the JCKMF scholarship.