Microfluidics for pharmaceutical nanoparticle fabrication: The truth and the myth

Abstract

Using micro-sized channels to manipulate fluids is the essence of microfluidics which has wide applications from analytical chemistry to material science and cell biology research.Recently, using microfluidic-based devices for pharmaceutical research, in particular for the fabrication of micro-and nano-particles, has emerged as a new area of interest. The particles that can be prepared by microfluidic devices can range from micron size droplet-based emulsions to nano-sized drug loaded polymeric particles. Microfluidic technology poses unique advantages in terms of the high precision of the mixing regimes and control of fluids involved in formulation preparation. As a result of this, monodispersity of the particles prepared by microfluidics is often recognised as being a particularly advantageous feature in comparison to those prepared by conventional large-scale mixing methods. However, there is a range of practical drawbacks and challenges of using microfluidics as a direct micron-and nano-particle manufacturing method. Technological advances are still required before this type of processing can be translated for application by the pharmaceutical industry. This review focuses specifically on the application of microfluidics for pharmaceutical solid nanoparticle preparation and discusses the theoretical foundation of using the nanoprecipitation principle to generate particles and how this is translated into microfluidic design and operation.

Fabrication and Applications of Microfluidic Devices: A Review

“…According to George Whitesides, one of the most important personalities in this field, microfluidics represents "the science and technology of systems that process or manipulate small (10 -9 to 10 -18 L) amounts of fluids, using channels with dimensions of tens to hundreds of micrometers" [1][2][3]. Microfluidics evolved from the convergence of technologies and principles from several pre-existing domains, such as chemistry, physics, biology, material science, fluid dynamics, and microelectronics [1,4]. While the field of microfluidics, as such, is quite new, the concept of microchannels was previously integrated in the component capillaries of gas chromatography and capillary electrophoresis equipment (made of glass or quartz) or in flow reactors (made of metal) [2].…”

“…Such miniaturized microscale devices are useful instruments for carrying out operations like reactions, separations, or the detection of various compounds [4,10]. Depending on their application and functional particularities, microfluidic devices can also be found in the literature as microreactors [3,6,11], lab-on-a-chip [12][13][14], or organ-on-a-chip [4,15,16]. Providing their destination use, microfluidic chips can be manufactured from a broad range of materials, employing diverse fabrication methods [17,18].…”

Colloidal Particles for Pickering Emulsion Stabilization Prepared via Antisolvent Precipitation of Lignin-Rich Cocoa Shell Extract

“…The absence of surface-active lipids may also be the reason for the larger of the two individual particle populations. Their presence would decrease interfacial tension thus promoting droplet breakup and mixing of the solvent and antisolvent phase, a factor established to promote a small narrow antisolvent particle population [ 66 ]. It could also be that a fraction of initially smaller particles has coalesced into larger individual particles, a hypothesis requiring experimental validation.…”

Layer-by-Layer assembled nano-drug delivery systems for cancer treatment

“…Specifically, more precisely control over the fabrication process needs further explorations to achieve more accurate regulation of the nanostructure and drug distribution of LbL assembled NDDS. For instance, by using microfluidics which can increase the control of the entire fabrication process up to an unprecedented level, it is possible to investigate the sophisticated control over the properties of LbL assembled NDDS (Hamdallah et al, 2020;. Moreover, personalized design of LbL assembled NDDS based on unique characteristics of delivered anticancer drugs is another major direction.…”