Controlled drug release holds promise to revolutionize medicine, particularly if short-term and long-term release can be combined in a single system. We present here a new pulsatile release system, in which the pulses were achieved using 3D scaffolds of poly(l-lactic acid), PLLA. From a morphological characterization of the scaffold’s surfaces, before and after releasing experiments at distinct pHs, we infer that release is governed by electrostatic interactions and the fractal geometry of the scaffolds. Furthermore, the scaffold can present short-term (within hours) or long-term (several days long) releasing profiles by varying the pH, which opens the way for unprecedented drug release control.
Schlieren image velocimetry is based on light de ection through ow heterogeneities and image crosscorrelations. This is a low-cost and relatively low complexity technique that allows measurement of the droplet velocity eld in a large region of a spray. A Z-type Toepler schlieren system with a high-speed camera was used to determine mean vertical and horizontal droplet velocities, as well as the cone angles of sprays produced by a pressure swirl injector with characteristic geometric constant K = 2. Different LEDs and digital lters were evaluated for edge detection and improvement of image contrast. Open software was adopted for digital image processing and velocimetry. Interrogation windows and overlaps of different sizes were tested to obtain an appropriate correlation for determination of the velocity eld.The digital images were obtained with 5×10 3 fps and a resolution of 2.77 pixels/mm. Since the swirl sprays analysed presented instabilities, a number of 100 cross-correlations of images was required to reduce mean velocity uctuations. Injection pressures varied from 0.05 to 7 bar and mass ow rates varied from 1.389 to 13.89 g/s, using water as test uid. The wideband warm white LED with Laplacian or high-pass lters provided velocity data for a larger range of injection pressures. Mean axial velocities varied from 3.3 to 11.3 m/s, approximately, with mean horizontal velocities varying from around 0.17 to 3.3 m/s for pressures from 0.05 to 3.22 bar. The velocity data were compared to microscopic shadowgraphy results, showing a good agreement. Spray cone angles ranged from about 32.5 o to 69.5 o , for injection pressures from 0.05 to 7 bar, and results of triangulation with a blue LED were closer to semiempirical data.
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