Abstract
Lecithin is a natural amphiphilic molecule, the microemulsions of which are often employed as a transdermal delivery medium of drugs and cosmetics. However, it constructs a microemulsion and lamellar phase in a phase diagram without co-surfactant only at a narrow range of composition. In this study, the effect of several short-chain alcohols on pseudo-ternary phase diagrams composed of lecithin, water and dodecane containing 1.0 wt% lidocaine (local anesthetic) was investigated in relation to the application of lecithin-based microemulsion for transdermal drug delivery. The phase diagram for an aqueous solution containing 80.0 wt% ethanol showed a lamellar structure (LC) and bicontinuous isotropic regions. When the mixing ratio of lecithin to alcohols (1-propanol, 1-butanol and n-pentanol) was 2: 1, water-in-oil (L2) and oil-in-water (L1) microemulsions and LC were obtained in a certain range of compositions. The maximum solubilization of water into L2 phase was 38 wt% when the total surfactant was 43 wt% with butanol as cosurfactant.
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Choi, SY., Oh, SG., Bae, SY. et al. Effect of short-chain alcohols as co-surfactants on pseudo-ternary phase diagrams containing lecithin. Korean J. Chem. Eng. 16, 377–381 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02707128
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02707128