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Morphology and drug release behavior of N-isopropylacrylamide/acrylic acid copolymer as stimuli-responsive nanogels

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Abstract

Thermo- and pH-responsive N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) nanogels can be obtained by copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) comonomer through differential microemulsion polymerization. The effects of comonomer, cross-linker, surfactant contents, and water/oil ratio were preliminarily investigated by a 24 full factorial design in order to eliminate the insignificant parameters from the polymerization analysis. The smallest poly(NIPAM-co-AA) nanogel particles were 40 ± 1 nm in diameter with 6 wt% of solid content and 98% conversion without coagulation. The comonomer amounts controlled the morphologies and LCST of the poly(NIPAM-co-AA) nanogels. The hairy microgels of poly(NIPAM-co-AA) with a 10:90 mol ratio of AA/ NIPAM had a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of 6 °C. With an increase in the AA amount to a 17 mol ratio, the LCST increased to 27 °C, resulting in core-shell morphology. The morphology of resultant nanogels was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to calculate the mole ratio of NIPAM and AA in resultant nanogels after dialysis. Both nanogel mole ratio and morphology effectively retained the cationic anti-cancer drug of methylene blue for several hours, an important basic requirement for a drug delivery system. Compared to core-shell microgels, a higher methylene blue release was obtained from the hairy microgels in simulated intestinal fluid.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful for the generous financial support from the Royal Golden Jubilee Ph.D. Program of the Thailand Research Fund under the Contract Grant Number PHD/0098/2549. Financial supports from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) are highly appreciated. Research facilities provided by the Department of Imaging and Printing Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; and the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program of Petrochemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand

    Meshaya Pruettiphap & Suda Kiatkamjornwong

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Garry L. Rempel

  3. College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Material Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Qinmin Pan

  4. Academy of Science, the Royal Society of Thailand, Bangkok, 10300, Thailand

    Suda Kiatkamjornwong

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  1. Meshaya Pruettiphap
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  2. Garry L. Rempel
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  3. Qinmin Pan
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  4. Suda Kiatkamjornwong
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Suda Kiatkamjornwong.

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Pruettiphap, M., Rempel, G.L., Pan, Q. et al. Morphology and drug release behavior of N-isopropylacrylamide/acrylic acid copolymer as stimuli-responsive nanogels. Iran Polym J 26, 957–969 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13726-017-0571-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13726-017-0571-8

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