Microencapsulation using poly (L-lactic acid) II: Preparative variables affecting microcapsule properties.

Poly (L-lactic acid) [L-PLA] microcapsules containing phenobarbitone were prepared from a w/o emulsion system, using light liquid paraffin as the continuum and a solution of phenobarbitone and L-PLA in acetonitrile as the disperse phase. Increasing stirring rate and emulsifying agent concentration were found to reduce microcapsule size. Spans (sorbitan esters of fatty acids) and Brijs (polyoxy ethylene ethers of fatty acids) with different physicochemical properties have been found to produce microcapsules of differing size. An attempt has been made to correlate emulsifier properties and the corresponding microcapsule size. It was found that the emulsifiers had little or no effect on the interfacial tension between light liquid paraffin and acetonitrile and there was no correlation between HLB of the emulsifiers and the resulting microcapsule size. It was postulated that microcapsule size would be affected by the packing of the emulsifier at the interface which would depend on the structure of the emulsifier. Closer, more uniform packing by the straight chain saturated fatty acid containing emulsifiers produced smaller microcapsules than when lose packing, which existed when emulsifiers containing either three fatty acid chains or a 'V' shaped cis-double bond containing fatty acid chain, were used. Microcapsule size was found to increase rapidly with an increase in polymer concentration, if this polymer concentration was increased in conjunction with an increase in the total solid content of the dispersed phase. Increases in polymer concentration by reducing the quantity of solvent for the dispersed phase caused little increase in mean microcapsule size. The phenobarbitone content in the microcapsules was not affected significantly by variations in the preparative parameters.