Preparation of multicompartment sub-micron particles using a triple-needle electrohydrodynamic device

Abstract

Control over the size and morphology of polymeric carriers for drug delivery systems is essential to optimize their functionality. In the current study, we demonstrate the feasibility of using an electrohydrodynamic process with a triple-needle device to prepare nearly mono-dispersed, spherical, tri-layered sub-micron particles. Three biocompatible polymer solutions of poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), polycaprolactone (PCL) and polymethylsilsesquioxane (PMSQ) were used to prepare particles with three distinct layers. Optimized particles were shown to be spherical with an average size ranging from 320 nm (±80 nm) to 220 (±8 nm), which varied with a change in the working distance in the electrohydrodynamic processing. The surface and internal structure and morphology were studied using confocal, transmission and scanning electron microscopy combined with focused ion beam sectioning. Cytotoxicity was shown to be negligible in an in vitro assay. The ability to fabricate such multilayered particles in a single step, under ambient conditions has considerable potential for a range of applications in particular controlled release drug delivery system.

Electrohydrodynamic atomization: A two-decade effort to produce and process micro-/nanoparticulate materials

“…Since then, various core-shell structured particles have been developed using the similar approach (Kzemi and Lahann, 2008; Xu et al, 2013a and Cao et al, 2014). The triple coaxial electrospraying device was also developed for the production of triple-layered structures in a single step process (Kim and Kim, 2010 and Labbaf et al, 2013). In separate studies, multi-chamber microspheres were generated by utilization of a modified co-axial electrospraying device called compound-fluidic electrospray (Chen et al, 2008 and Zhao and Jiang, 2009).…”

Nanofibers Fabricated Using Triaxial Electrospinning as Zero Order Drug Delivery Systems

“…[20][21][22][23] There are very few investigations into side-by-side electrospinning to generate Janus nanofibers, [24][25][26][27][28][29] and even fewer reports on multiple-layer nanofibers. [30][31][32][33][34][35] The slow development of multiple-fluid electrospinning processes is related to their difficulty of implementation. The successful preparation of multi-component fibers requires the spinning fluids to have good compatibility, so that they can be drawn together by electrical forces without any coagulation.…”

Tuning Microparticle Porosity during Single Needle Electrospraying Synthesis via a Non-Solvent-Based Physicochemical Approach

“…In this instance, both solid and hollow MPs with a porous surface topology were formed [13]. While the use of multiple non-solvents (for material dissolution) and multiple nozzles (e.g., co-axial methods) is valuable, the complexity of these systems will contribute towards greater costs and additional parameter analysis (both for output and pre-process characterization) [14,15]. In this study, we demonstrate an unconventional approach using a series of collecting non-solvents, although the base solvent (DCM) for PCL solubilisation remains constant.…”