Preparation and characterisation of poly(butylene succinate) microcarriers containing pesticide

Abstract

Microcarriers containing pesticide have been designed to improve drug stability and increase release efficiency, which is favourable to the environment and agriculture development. In this work, biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) microspheres containing pesticide, λ-cyhalothrin, as an active agent are prepared by the solvent evaporation induced phase separation method. The microspheres show a uniform morphology and a narrow particle size distribution. The pesticide content is measured by high-performance liquid chromatography. The prepared microcarriers demonstrate high-loading capacity, encapsulation efficiency and long release time, which may find potential applications as new pesticide formulations.

Degradable Controlled Release Fertilizer Composite Prepared via Extrusion: Fabrication, Characterization, and Release Mechanisms

“…The processing methods for controlled release fertilizers include (1) solvent evaporation-induced phase separation for microcarriers, (2) solution coating on fertilizer granules with/without heat reaction, (3) cold-compressing pellets of fertilizers and binders, and (4) extrusion/melt-blending for polymer/fertilizer composite tablets/films [2,[18][19][20][21]. Extrusion or melt blending for the preparation of controlled release nitrogen fertilizers (such as urea and nitrogen inhibitor) is particularly attractive because the process is simple, cheap, and does not involve solvents, high pressure, or reactive mixing [19,20,22,23].…”

“…Sackett et al, Arifin et al, and Versypt et al, reviewed the mathematical modeling and simulations of drug release of biodegradable controlled release systems [25,28,29]. Biodegradable polymers (such as polybutylene succinate (PBS), polyhydroxyalkanoates, biopolyol/methylene diphenyl diisocyanate, and starch) have been applied alone or in combination as encapsulating materials for controlled release fertilizer/pesticide, especially in the form of coated granules [2,[19][20][21]30,31]. Irfan et al, reviewed and reported the latest development in modeling and simulation of nutrients release, mainly based on coated fertilizer, but the effects of polymer degradation and external environment (such as temperature of soil) are less studied [32].…”