Atmospheric pressure drying starch aerogel as a drug carrier for enhancing ibuprofen water solubility

Abstract One of the main challenges in drug delivery is to enhance the bioavailability of poorly water‐soluble drugs using non‐toxic nanocarriers such as hydrophilic polymer matrices. Polysaccharide aerogels, such as starch aerogels, are promising drug delivery matrices owing to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, abundant availability, and high surface area for drug loading. In this study, after the synthesis of potato starch aerogels as drug carriers, the characteristics of the prepared samples were investigated by Brunauer‐Emmett‐Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. Starch aerogels were loaded with ibuprofen by adsorption from drug solution using different solvents of ethanol and isopropanol. The drug‐loaded aerogels were analyzed by UV, FTIR, and XRD spectroscopy, confirming the drug's structural integrity after loading. Adsorption studies using ethanol and isopropanol revealed that ibuprofen's higher solubility in ethanol led to an approximately 9% increase in drug loading compared with isopropanol. Adsorption equilibrium studies show that the Freundlich model for both ethanol and isopropanol solvents shows a better curve fit with the experimental data, with correlation coefficients of 0.9764 and 0.984, respectively. Owing to the poor dissolution rate of pure ibuprofen, the dissolution rate is improved by loading the drug onto starch aerogel, such that after 240 min, 72 and 66% of the ibuprofen present on the carrier is dissolved when ethanol and isopropanol solvents are used, respectively. Then, the small‐volume USP2 device used in this study was built using scaling‐down rules, considering the standard USP2 as a design reference. For the first time, the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique was used to investigate the flow patterns and their effects on the drug release. The instantaneous velocity data shows the presence of eddies and secondary flows in different regions of the tank, and also the dominant flow inside the tank is tangential flow created by the rotation of the blade. These flows are very suitable for micro‐mixing. The results of the obtained data show that this drug delivery system can be used as an alternative to the micronization method, which is currently used to achieve rapid drug release.