Hi Everyone,
Hope you are doing well. I am developing alginate-based hydrogels loaded drug in the final form of tablet for targeted colon delivery applications.
The challenge I have faced is the moisture content of the developed hydrogel-drug. After loading drug into hydrogel I dry them at 40 °C overnight but they are still wet with moisture content of 23 % far more than standard range of 2-3 %. We usually dry hydrogel at 70-80 °C overnight and get completely dry hydrogels but the problem is that the drug would degrade at that temperature. So I need to dry the hydrogel-drug complex at temperatures less than 40 °C. I have been trying vacuum oven but still struggling to dry. I would appreciate if I could have your comments on it please.
Cheers, Hossein
Hossein Hetemadi Hydrogels are three-dimensional (3D) polymeric networks, whose hydrophilic structure allows the absorption of large amounts of water (thousands of times their dry weight). Hydrogels consisting of synthetic polymers are currently gaining more interest than natural-derived polymers due to their enhanced life-time, higher capacity to absorb water, improved mechanical properties and finely-tuned degradation. Depending on their structure, hydrogels can be chemically stable or easily degradable. According to the type of cross-linking between the polymers, hydrogels can be classified in physical, held together by non-covalent, reversible interactions and chemical hydrogels, linked by non-reversible covalent bonds.
Their unique properties, including reliable biocompatibility, tunable mechanical and degradation features, sensitivity to various stimuli and the ability to be easily conjugated with hydrophilic and hydrophobic therapeutic compounds has made them important candidates in biomedical applications including drug delivery
Hope this will help out
Article Hydrogels Based Drug Delivery Synthesis, Characterization an...
Thanks Kashif for your time but you did not provide the answer to my question buddy. I know the principles of hydrogels but what I am asking is: I have a hydrogel loaded drug and want to have both dry completely. If you put hydrogel at 0ven at 70-80 Celsius you get it dried but with drug you can not go that temperature cause this high temperature would kill the drug. The drug can be dried at max 40 C but at this temperature hydrogel is not dried completely. how to dry hydrogel loaded drug at 40? I am trying vacuum oven in which the boiling temperature of water comes around 40 C by adjusting the pressure inside vacuum around 740 mm Hg but still am working on it. Any other idea? thx
Did you try lyophilization ?
You can achieme needed 2-3% of water content without the drug degradation
Andrey Nagdalian Dear Andrey, thanks for the note. have you tried this method on hydrogel loaded drug before? we need completely dry hydrogel cause then we would coat them with some blenders to make the drug in the final form of tablet or capsules for the market. I dried hydrogels overnight at 40 0C in air oven which were not dried, then we coat to make tablets but after few hrs the tablet get crashed cause of higher moisture % of hydrogel in the core.
Hossein Hetemadi If you are preparing the product for market, It is inevitable that you will need to eith lyophilize to increase the shelf life of product and for this reason you should definitely go with the freeze drying.
If your formulation is cryosensitive, like the protiens/or drug, i would suggest you to include cryoprotectant that will increase the stability of drug product.
Even if the hydrogel does not have a drug in it, i think its not wise to dry it over 70 degrees, as you might affect the crosslinking.
Generally for oral formulations, you need all of studies, just to optimize excipients. I am sure you are doing it, but just in case you did not perform it, I am suggesting to Perform DoE to optimize formulation for exponential increase in shelf life, which will not only reduce the cost, but also improve process efficiency.
Let me know if your problem still persists.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Bioecology
- Systems Ecology
- Landscape Ecology
- Connectivity