Synthesis and characterization of cyclodextrin based chitosan nanoparticles for drug delivery of essential oil

M.Sc. (Nanoscience)Abstract: The cinnamomum zeylanicum essential oil (CEO) is a plant extract from Cinnamomum zeylanicum Blume species and possess good antimicrobial activity such as anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-parasitical and insecticidal. However, CEO is a volatile compound which easily decomposes upon direct exposure to heat, pressure, light or oxygen, and is also highly insoluble in water. This study reports the encapsulation of cinnamomum zeylanicum essential oil (CEO) in chitosan nanoparticles (CS-NPs) and β-cyclodextrins based chitosan nanoparticles (β-cyclodextrins/CS -NPs) synthesized via an ionic gelation cross-linking method. The as-synthesised CS-NPs and β-cyclodextrins/CS-NPs loaded CEO were characterized using Ultraviolet and visible (UV-vis) spectrophotometry, dynamic light scattering (DLS), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) and High resolution transmission electron Microscopy (HR-TEM). The properties of CEO-loaded β-CD/CS-NPs and CEO-loaded CS-NPs such as the encapsulation efficiency (EE), surface charge, morphology, and in vitro drug release were investigated. At an optimized conditions, the encapsulation efficiency (EE) of CEO-loaded β-CD/CS-NPs and CEO-loaded chitosan nanoparticles were about 58.03 1.13 % and 20.04 %, respectively, when the initial CEO content was 12.5 mg/mg of chitosan. As determined by TEM and DLS, the individual nanoparticles of CEO-loaded β-CD/CS-NPs and CEO-loaded CS-NPs exhibited a spherical shape with an average size distribution of 36.08 11.25 nm and 111.15 27.88 nm, and a positively charged surface with a zeta potential value of 20.73 3.20 and 30.5 0.72 mV, respectively. The in vitro release of CEO from optimized chitosan nanoparticles showed a sustained release, with release amounts of 49..