Development of nanostructured lipid carrier made of cocoa butter: A preliminary-study

AWDE ALFONSO, HAMOUDI GHASSAN; FORMICA, MARÍA LINA; RIBOTTA, PABLO DANIEL; PALMA, SANTIAGO DANIEL

Córdoba

Congreso; The Sixth International Meeting of Pharmaceutical Sciences (RICiFa),; 2021

Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Córdoba

This work proposes the design and development of a novel nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) with a lipid composition that includes cocoa butter as a solid lipid because it is an accessible, safe and low-cost material. A screening of lipids components for NLC preparation was carried out, followed by a mixture design with Minitab 18® in order to optimize the solid lipid:liquid lipid ratio in ranges from 0 to 10% at a constant amount of aqueous phase (85%) and surfactant (5%). All nanocarriers were characterized in terms of average particle size (APS), polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential (ZP), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A preliminary nanocarrier composed of Precirol® ATO5, Labrafil® M1944-CS and cocoa butter, was obtained. All NLC showed an APS less than 200 nm, a PDI less than 0.2 and a negative PZ. No significant differences in APS were observed under storage conditions (Room temperature and 4 °C) for the first 30 days. NLC with a solid lipid:liquid lipid (3:7) ratio presented an APS=(110±15) nm, a PDI=(0.11±0.01) and ZP=(-17±1) mV which was selected for future assays due to its colloidal stability. Moreover, this NLC tended to show a spherical morphology. The new nanocarrier is a promising drug delivery system, made up of accessible materials and obtained by a potentially scalable process.