MICROENCAPSULATION OF NITROFURANTOIN BY COACERVATION USING CERTAIN POLYMERIC MATERIALS

Aly, A. M.; Saleh, S. I.; Ahmed, S. M.; Abdel-Rahaman, S. I.; Aboutaleb, A. E.

doi:10.21608/bfsa.1993.70031

MICROENCAPSULATION OF NITROFURANTOIN BY COACERVATION USING CERTAIN POLYMERIC MATERIALS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut Egypt

10.21608/bfsa.1993.70031

Abstract

Microencapsulation of nitrofurantoin was carried out in order to prepare sustained release formulations with less side effects. Three coacervation techniques, using three different coating materials, were adopted for this purpose as follows: non - solvent addition using Eudragit RS 100 (ERS), temperature change using ethylcellulose (EC) and salt addition using sodium alginate (SA). The physical properties as well as the dissolution characteristics were investigated. Microencapsulation of nitrofurantoin (NF) gave rise to sustaining its release at pH 1.12. NF-SA and NF-EC microcapsules showed more retarded release than NF-ERS microcapsules. Increasing the proportion of ERS in its microcapsules resulted in a marked sustaining of NF release whereas, no significant effect was obtained upon increasing the proportion of EC in NF-EC microcapsules. NF microcapsules showed fast release at pH 7.8 specially in case of SA. Regarding the release kinetics, first order model proved to be the most operative mechanism explaining the release of NF from NF-ERS microcapsules. On the other hand, Baker and Lonsdale equation was found to be the most suitable model for explaining the release of NF from EC or SA microcapsules.