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Chitosan microspheres for controlled delivery of auxins as agrochemicals

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Abstract

Chitosan microspheres were prepared by an emulsion crosslinking method using glutaraldehyde as the cross-linker. Two auxins were dissolved in ethyl benzoate and encapsulated into the microspheres. The best encapsulation efficiency for naphthalene-1-acetic acid and indole-3-acetic acid, respectively, are 68% and 56% and depends on the selection of the appropriate extent of crosslinker, crosslinking time, and the ratio of the oil/water phase. The microspheres were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy. Differential scanning calorimetry was applied to study the thermal stabilities, and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the morphology of the loaded microspheres. In-vitro release studies performed in buffered aqueous methanol at pH 7.4 indicated that the cumulative release rate of the auxins from the particles reaches a maximum (60%) after about 120 h. The release rate in water is higher than the one in methanol. Based on data for the correlation coefficient it is concluded that the drug release is controlled by a diffusion mechanism that follows a super Case-II transport scheme.

In this work, two auxins, e.g., naphthalene-1-acetic acid and indole-3-acetic acid, were encapsulated into chitosan microspheres by an emulsion crosslinking method. Furthermore, the encapsulation efficiency and the in-vitro release were discussed in detail indicating that the drug release was controlled by a diffusion mechanism that followed a super Case-II transport scheme

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Acknowledgement

This work was financially supported by the key Academic Program of the 3rd phase “211 Project”of South China Agricultural University (2009B010100001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomaterial, College of Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Ling Fan, Xueyi Le, Xiaohua Zhou, Shi Chen, Haifeng Liu & Yahong Xiong

  2. State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis and Selective Oxidation, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Ronghua Jin

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  1. Ling Fan
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  2. Ronghua Jin
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Correspondence to Shi Chen.

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Fan, L., Jin, R., Le, X. et al. Chitosan microspheres for controlled delivery of auxins as agrochemicals. Microchim Acta 176, 381–387 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-011-0732-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-011-0732-y

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