Modification of nanocrystalline cellulose with natural surfactant for controlled release of drug

Due to its excellent properties, nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) has significant potential applications for various kinds of processes. One of the applications is for biomedical use is as drug carrier because of its biocompatibility, biodegradability and low toxicity. Due to the very large surface area as a consequence of nano dimension and negative charge on the surface of NCC, large amounts of drugs can be loaded to the surface of this material, and optimal of drug release can be achieved. Due to this excellence, NCC is a potential candidate to replace the conventional drug carrier, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). Drug carrier should have high adsorption and desorption ability. To improve the drug loading capability, rarasaponin extracted from Sapindus rarak DC was employed as a surfactant for NCC modification with ratio 1:11, and 1:22 (rarasaponin:NCC). In this research, NCC was obtained from Whatman No.1 filter paper as the cellulose source using sulphuric acid as a hydrolyzing agent. NCC-rarasaponin was analyzed using FTIR and zeta potential analyzer to study its characteristics. The result indicates that modified NCC can adsorp tetracycline in greater amount than unmodified NCC, as evidenced by the adsorption capacity (qm) which is 6.1141, 9.3750, and 11.8750 mg/g (at 30°C) for NCC, 1:11, and 1:22 (w/w) rarasaponin:NCC respectively. The adsorbed tetracycline was released slowly and reached equilibrium at 14 hours, where the desorption efficiency is 18.28% at pH 3 and 55.49% at pH 7