CHITOSAN BASED POLYELECTROLYTE COMPLEX NANOPARTICLES: PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION
Khaled E. Abuelella, Hend Abd-Allah, Sara M. Soliman, Mona M.A. Abdel-Mottaleb
Abstract
Recently, the use of biodegradable polymers for specialized applications such as controlled release of drug formulations gained considerable attention. Biodegradable nanoparticles have been widely utilized in drug delivery systems. In this work polyelectrolyte complexation was used to prepare chitosan nanoparticles. The preparation process and major parameters were discussed and optimized. The nanoparticles were prepared by the polyelectrolyte complexation of chitosan (CS) with hyaluronate (HA). Studies were performed to identify effect of chitosan and hyaluronate molecular weight, chitosan: hyaluronate mass ratio and the effects of the aqueous chitosan solution pH on the particle size of nanoparticles. Nanoparticles were characterized by particle size analysis, polydispersity index, zeta potential and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Results showed that nanoparticles could be prepared only within an optimal zone of appropriate chitosan and hyaluronate molecular weights and CS:HA mass ratio. Increasing the hyaluronate molecular weight from low to high led to a significant enlargement in the particle size of the prepared nanoparticles with different chitosan molecular weights. Besides, we found that increasing the hyaluronate content at mass ratio 1:2 of CS:HA led to precipitation of nanoparticles . The particle sizes of the chitosan/HA nanoparticles significantly decreased with the increase of chitosan solution pH. The spherical shaped chitosan/HA nanoparticles were confirmed by TEM. The study showed that systematic design and modulation of the particle size of chitosan/HA polyelectrolyte complexes can be readily achieved with right control of critical processing parameters.