An Insight Into the Drug Release Kinetics of Polylactic Acid/Chitosan/Nanocellulose Nanofibers: Effect of Preparation Method on Drug Release Kinetics

ABSTRACT Nanofibers are considered suitable candidates for drug delivery applications due to their high surface‐to‐volume ratio, which solves the issue of sustained drug delivery suffered by other biocomposite morphologies. However, the complexity is increasing due to the increasing expectations from the drug delivery systems (DDSs), and a more complex system for crucial challenges is needed. Mathematical modeling is essential for drug‐related applications since it gives insight into the release mechanism and can help redesign the system. However, the current literature lacks the study of release kinetics from whole biopolymeric nanofibrous DDSs, and the studies mostly involve some inorganic moiety in the DDS, which can potentially be toxic. In addition, literature also lacks the effect of the presence of a drug carrier and the method of drug loading on the release kinetics. The current work uses NES to fabricate polylactic acid (PLA)/chitosan (CS) (10:0.1 w/v%) and polylactic acid/chitosan/nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) (10:0.1:0.05 w/v%) based nanofibers and studies the effect of the presence of NCC and drug loading method on release kinetics using various models. The DDS with the pre‐loaded drug on the nanocarrier NCC showed the best sustained release confirmed by mathematical modeling, while PLA/CS DDS failed to show sustained release and followed the saturation kinetics model. The current study provides insight into the complex biopolymeric nanofibrous system and highlights the importance of the neglected parameter of drug loading on release kinetics.