Abstract:

•A new method for production of organic nanoparticles is demonstrated for curcumin.•The method is based on flash nanoprecipitation from partially water-soluble emulsions.•A simple hand-operated mixer is employed for flash nanoprecipitation process.•Dry nanometric powders obtained by spray drying are easily dispersible in water.•The resultant particles are 40nm in diameter and contain above 20wt% active substance.Nanometric particles of a model hydrophobic substance curcumin were prepared by a novel method, namely, flash nanoprecipitation from a coarse oil-in-water emulsion. The method employs turbulent co-mixing of water with curcumin-loaded emulsion using manually-operated confined impingement jets mixer. A clear and stable dispersion of nanoparticles was formed in this process, and could be converted to dry, easily water-dispersible powder by spray drying. The mean size of the particles was about 40nm by DLS, confirmed by Cryo-TEM. The obtained particles contained 20.4wt% curcumin, X-ray analysis showed it was amorphous. The significant advantages of the studied process are its feasibility, speed and low cost. It does not require any special high-energy input equipment to reduce the droplet size of the initial emulsion as required by the vast majority of other methods, and relies on rapid turbulent mixing and on flow-induced shear stress formed in the simple, manually-operated mixer. Control experiments clearly indicate that employing emulsion, instead of a plain solution and flash nanoprecipitation instead of a simple antisolvent precipitation are advantageous in terms of particle size and stability.

Notes:

Accession Number: S0021979714005384; Author: Margulis, Katherine (a, ⁎); Author: Magdassi, Shlomo (a); Author: Lee, Han Seung (b); Author: Macosko, Christopher W. (b); Affiliation: Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; Affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; Number of Pages: 6; Language: English;