FABRICATION OF SODIUM ALGINATE/GUM GHATTI IPN MICROBEADS INTERCALATED WITH KAOLIN NANO CLAY FOR CONTROLLED RELEASE OF CURCUMIN

Objective: The objective of this study is to fabricate sodium alginate (SA)/gum ghatti (GG) microbeads intercalated with Kaolin (KA) nano clay for the sustained release of curcumin (CUR). Methods: The microbeads were prepared by a simple ionotropic gelation technique. The developed beads were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (X-RD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Swelling studies and in vitro release studies were investigated under both pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 at 37 °C. Results: The developed microbeads were characterized by FTIR, which confirms the interaction between CUR, polymeric matrix and KA. DSC and XRD analysis reveals that the CUR has molecularly dispersed in the polymer matrix. In vitro results illustrated that microbeads were influenced by the pH of test media, which might be suitable for intestinal drug delivery. The drug release mechanism was analyzed by fitting the release data into different kinetic equations and n values are obtained in the range of 0.609-0.640, suggesting that the developed microbeads showed the non-Fickian diffusion type drug release. Conclusion: These results clearly illustrated that the developed KA intercalated polymeric microbeads are potential drug carriers for the controlled release of CUR.