Li Sining, Zhao Yaping
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2017 May 2;12:3485-3494. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S135239. eCollection 2017.
Nanoparticles have attracted more and more attention in the medicinal field. Zein is a biomacromolecule and can be used as a carrier for delivering active ingredients to prepare controlled release drugs. In this article, we presented the preparation of zein nanoparticles by solution-enhanced dispersion by supercritical CO (SEDS) approach. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy were applied to characterize the size and morphology of the obtained particles. The nozzle structure and the CO flow rate greatly affected the morphology and the size of the particles. The size of zein was able to be reduced to 50-350 nm according to the different conditions. The morphologies of the resultant zein were either sphere or the filament network consisted of nanoparticles. The influence of the nozzle structure and the CO flow rate on the velocity field was elucidated by using computational fluid dynamics. The nozzle structure and the CO flow rate greatly affected the distribution of the velocity field. However, a similar velocity field could also be obtained when the nozzle structure or the CO flow rate, or both were different. Therefore, the influence of the nozzle structure and the CO flow rate on the size and morphology of the particles, can boil down to the velocity field. The results demonstrated that the velocity field can be a potential criterion for producing nanoparticles with controllable morphology and size, which is useful to scale-up the SEDS process.
纳米颗粒在医药领域已引起越来越多的关注。玉米醇溶蛋白是一种生物大分子，可作为载体用于递送活性成分以制备控释药物。在本文中，我们介绍了通过超临界CO溶液增强分散法（SEDS）制备玉米醇溶蛋白纳米颗粒的方法。应用扫描电子显微镜和透射电子显微镜来表征所获得颗粒的尺寸和形态。喷嘴结构和CO流速对颗粒的形态和尺寸有很大影响。根据不同条件，玉米醇溶蛋白的尺寸能够减小至50 - 350纳米。所得玉米醇溶蛋白的形态要么是球形，要么是由纳米颗粒组成的丝状网络。通过计算流体动力学阐明了喷嘴结构和CO流速对速度场的影响。喷嘴结构和CO流速对速度场的分布有很大影响。然而，当喷嘴结构或CO流速或两者都不同时，也可以获得相似的速度场。因此，喷嘴结构和CO流速对颗粒尺寸和形态的影响可归结为速度场。结果表明，速度场可以作为制备具有可控形态和尺寸的纳米颗粒的潜在标准，这对于扩大SEDS工艺规模很有用。
