Fabrication and characterization of boric acid-crosslinked ethyl cellulose and polyvinyl alcohol films as potential drug release systems for topical drug delivery

Nasrin Aliasgharlou; Farzin Asghari Sana; Saba Khoshbakht; Pezhman Zolfaghari; Hamed Charkhian

doi:10.3906/kim-2008-23

Fabrication and characterization of boric acid-crosslinked ethyl cellulose and polyvinyl alcohol films as potential drug release systems for topical drug delivery

Turk J Chem. 2020 Dec 16;44(6):1723-1732. doi: 10.3906/kim-2008-23. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Nasrin Aliasgharlou¹, Farzin Asghari Sana^{2

3}, Saba Khoshbakht³, Pezhman Zolfaghari⁴, Hamed Charkhian⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Urmia University, Urmia Iran.
² Department of Nanotechnology & Nanomedicine, Hacettepe University, Ankara Turkey.
³ Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Urmia University of Medical Science, Urmia Iran.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz Iran.
⁵ Young Researchers Club, Urmia Branch, Islamic Azad University, Urmia Iran.

Abstract

In this study, boric acid (BA) is employed as a crosslinking agent to improve the characteristics of two commonly used polymeric films, ethyl cellulose (EC) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), for topical drug delivery applications. The developed films are characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and SEM analysis. The results show that the surfaces of the prepared films are even and transparent, except for the BA-modified EC sample. The initial cumulative release for erythromycin (EM) is found to be 0.30 and 0.36 mg/mL for EC and PVA films, which drops to 0.25 and 0.20 mg/mL after BA crosslinking, respectively, after 1 h at 25 °C. Further, the developed formulations are stable for 75 days. Also, the antibacterial activity of the developed formulations is investigated against S. aureus (ATCC® 25923™ and ATCC® 29213™). The obtained data confirm that the application of BA as the crosslinking agent extends the release of EM from EC and PVA polymeric films. The findings of this study suggest that BA-crosslinked EC and PVA films are promising carriers for controlled topical drug delivery applications.

Keywords: Drug delivery system; boric acid; erythromycin; ethyl cellulose; polymeric film; polyvinyl alcohol.