Microwave-Assisted Nanonization of Poorly Water-Soluble Curcumin

Nanonization is a technology that is often used to enhance aqueous solubility and thus improve bioavailability of poorly soluble molecules. This improvement in bioavailability is due to changes in physicochemical properties such as surface/volume ratio, wettability etc. In this work, material specific coupling and volumetric heating properties of microwaves were utilized to achieve a high degree of supersaturation and nucleation by rapidly and uniformly evaporating the solvent from the binary mixture of solvent and antisolvent. This resulted in the formation of nanosized curcumin nanoparticles suspended in the antisolvent. Nanonization resulted in the formation of curcumin nanoparticles which were ∼160 nm size. The spherical shape of the nanoparticles was visually confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. By applying this approach, we managed to convert large polydispersed curcumin crystals into nanoparticles with considerably decreased crystallinity. This was demonstrated by the decrease in the curcumin’s characteristic sharp peaks in the spectral line from 10–30° (2θ) in the XRD studies and reduced enthalpy of melting as observed by DSC studies. As a consequence of this, it potentially increases the apparent solubility, dissolution velocity and oral bioavailability of curcumin. This increases its use in both food and pharmaceutical products. Microwave- assisted nanonization technology has been developed using green solvents like ethanol and water. This should lead to a step change in the development of sustainable nanotechnology for food and pharmaceutical application