Dispersive Stabilization of Liquid Crystal-in-Water with Acrylamide Copolymer/Surfactant Mixture: Nematic Curvilinear Aligned Phase Composite Film

Influence of hydrophobe on the release behavior of vinyl acetate miniemulsion polymerization

Poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) nanoparticles containing antibiotic have been prepared by miniemulsion polymerization. To compare the effect of hydrophobe types, hexadecane and poly(vinyl acetate) were used as hydrophobe. The particle characteristics as the manufacturing condition were examined by particle size analyzer. As a result, the diameter of PVAc latexes was adjusted between 80 and 260 nm by homogenization conditions and amounts of surfactant. Also, the miniemulsion by using hexadecane showed the more long shelf stability and led to the more small particle size after polymerization, as compared with the case of using poly(vinyl acetate). This indicated that the use of poly(vinyl acetate) as a hydrophobe could not make the stable emulsion, but it could avoid volatile organic chemical problems in the final product. From the release profile of drug through UV spectra, the drug release was very slow and it could be seen that the release of drug encapsulated with PVAc was occurred with the polymer degradation.

Preparation and characterization of biodegradable poly(l-lactide)/poly(ethylene glycol) microcapsules containing erythromycin by emulsion solvent evaporation technique

In this work, the producing of a biodegradable poly(l-lactide) (PLA)/poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) microcapsule by emulsion solvent evaporation method was investigated. The effect of PEG segments added to the PLA microcapsules on the degradation, size distribution, and release behavior was studied. According to the results, PLA/PEG copolymer was more hydrophilic than PLA homopolymer, and with lower glass transition temperature. The surface of PLA/PEG microcapsules was not as smooth as that of PLA microcapsules, the mean diameters of prepared PLA and PLA/PEG microcapsules were 40 and 57 microm, respectively. And spherical forms were observed by the image analyzer and the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Drug release from microcapsules was affected by the properties of PLA/PEG copolymers determined by UV-vis spectra. It was found that the drug release rates of the microcapsules were significantly increased with adding of PEG, which explained by increasing hydrophilic groups.

Stability Characteristics of Dispersed Oil Droplets Prepared by the Microchannel Emulsification Method

A novel emulsification method, microchannel (MC) emulsification, was developed for making monodispersed regular-sized droplets in our laboratory. An oil-in-water dispersed system, in which phosphate buffer was used as the continuous phase, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as the surfactant, and clove oil as the dispersed phase, was prepared by this technique. The average diameter of oil droplets was about 20 µm, with a narrow size distribution. The stability characteristics of the dispersed oil droplets were investigated by an optical microscope and kinetic light scattering method. The stability of the dispersed oil droplets depended on the SDS concentration. When the SDS concentration was above the critical micelle concentration (CMC), the turbidity of the dispersed solution sharply increased at the initial stage. Optical microscopic observation has confirmed that a part of the oil droplets broke up with time, and submicrometer droplets appeared. On the other hand, when the SDS concentration was below the CMC, the turbidity of the dispersed solution had little change in the initial stage, showing that the oil droplets were very stable. The effect of ion concentration was also examined. The results showed that the stability of the oil droplets depended on the balance of the Van der Waals attraction and electrical repulsion between the oil droplets in low ion concentration. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.