Evaluation of chitosan-ferulic acid microcapsules for sustained drug delivery: Synthesis, characterizations, and release kinetics in vitro

Herein, bovine serum albumin (BSA) as model protein drug was loaded on chitosan-ferulic acid (CS-FA) conjugants as protein drug carrier through the spray drying technique. The successful graft copolymerization of chitosan with ferulic acid was confirmed with FT-IR and XRD analyses. Additionally, the results of UV–Vis confirmed that the bovine serum albumin loading in the chitosan-ferulic acid-bovine serum albumin microcapsule was about 15.93%, respectively. The thermal properties of the conjugates were evaluated by means of thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The results revealed that the chitosan-ferulic acid conjugates exhibited low crystallinity but high thermal stability compared with that of chitosan. The pharmacokinetic study demonstrated that the chitosan-ferulic acid conjugates could provide a significantly higher swelling ratio and superior in vitro sustained release property. Furthermore, the results of drug release mechanism exhibited the corrode model was more accurately described the drug release behaviour involving a combination of drug diffusion and polymer relaxation. All these properties made chitosan-ferulic acid conjugates have potential to be developed as an oral carrier in functional foods and drug delivery systems.