My particles have less than 50 nm diameter, are they suitable to use as a drug carrier or not? Are they too small?
It surely depends on the drug that you will use. But yes, 50 nm is a very small NP for drug carrier. A NP is given name for a carrier, that is at most 200nm in diameter. But for a drug carrier, to encapsulate more drugs you have to get at least 100-200 nm diamater NPs. And also, as the diameter gets lesser, more the surface area to volume ratio changes, and this causes rapid degradation/drug release, which is normally not a good thing, for example for a targeted delivery agents.
I hope this short description is enough. If not, please ask, so that I can provide you with more detailed information.
Cheers
Dear Elbay Malikmammadov
Thank you for the clear answer. I used nanoprecipitation method to encapsulate a hydrophobe drug in a biodegradable polymer. The drug to polymer ratio was 1:5 and 1:10 with moderate mixing. What could be the reason to reach such small particles? How can I improve the particles size?
If you think that problem is in drug-to-polymer ratio, then in the article below, drug to polymer ratio in nanprecipitation method was 1:100 and the diameters of the nanoparticles were ~400nm, which is also good and small enough for drug carriers for example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319016413001138 ,
where PLGA is a biodegradable polymer, and cucurbitacin I is a hydrophobic drug.
If the experiment setup is similar/same to any of the successful research procedures done on the topic taken from an article, then yes, there shoudn't be other reasons.
No, there is no articles!!! I just try to load a hydrophobic antibiotic on PLGA to prolong the drug release. Do you think it is useful to change my solvent/non-solvent system? Although the particles are small, their drug loading are between 25-40%. Aren't they acceptable yet? Shall I change the protocol?
It seems that you have to change the protocol if results are as you described.
What is your encapsulation method? I am assuming it would be a physical encapsulation method! if so, how physical encapsulation can prolong the drug release? I believe that NPs with less than 200 nm is good enough for in vivo study! 50 nm is actually a good size!
I used nanoprecipitation method which is supposed to produce nanoparticles between 100 to 300 nm! I use a biodegradable polymer. It is believed that drug release is due to polymer degradation so when surface to volume ratio increase it may lead to faster drug release. I am going to use the nanoparticle as an antimicrobial agent. In similar articles I have not seen such small particles. In case of cancer drugs, it is actually a good size, but for antibiotics, I am not sure!
You may able to control the NPs size by changing the ratio of the solvents! Hopefully, it helps you.
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijps/2012/564348/abs/
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