School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Division of Bioengineering

BG: Bioengineering Laboratory

Year 2, Semester 2

Drug Delivery

Location:

Name: Isabel Tan

Matric Number: U1621517G

Group: 6

Date of experiment: 2nd February 2017

GRADE: _____________

4. Results and Discussion

a) Table of Absorbance Values after 30 minutes:

Items Release in Water Release in SIF Release in SGF

Chinese Medicine 3.675 1.750 2.650

Legend:
Black Water
Red SGF
Blue SIF

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 Fig 1: Graph of Absorbance Values after 30 minutes

b) Observation made during the release study:

Time Water SGF SIF

5 Cracks No change Slightly Cloudy
10 Gel broken up and No change Slightly Cloudy
suspended in
water
15 Gel broken up and No change Slightly Cloudy
suspended in
water
20 Gel broken up and No change Gel broken up and
suspended in suspended in SIF
water. Solution

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 turns more yellow
25 Gel broken up and Bubbles Gel broken up and
suspended in suspended in SIF
water. Solution
turns more yellow
30 Gel broken up and Bubbles Gel broken up and
suspended in suspended in SIF
water. Solution
turns more yellow

c) Yes, calcium alginate is effective as encapsulation. In theory, the absorbance

values of SIF should be higher compared to SGF because calcium alginate is
supposed to protect the medicine from acidic pH in the stomach and dissolves in
the intestine which has a higher pH. In this experiment, we used SGF to mimic
the stomach and the SIF to mimic the intestinal environmental conditions.
However, due to human error, the graph contradicts the theoretical prediction.
This might be because the calcium alginate was not coated fully onto the pills,
resulting in inaccuracy of results. In addition, water should be used as a control
to show that little or no change will occur at neutral pH, however, due to a slight
fault in the experiment, the graph shows that the absorbance values in water is
the highest, which should not be the case. Therefore, theoretically, as an
encapsulation, calcium alginate allows drugs to remain intact in the stomach and
releases the drugs only in the intestine, allowing greater absorption.

d) Double encapsulation can achieve this timed outburst release where the outer
encapsulation envelops the first drug to be released at 30 minutes and the inner
encapsulation to be released at 60 minutes.

PLLA (biopolymer) Microspheres

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 Fig 2: Microsphere observed under optical microsphere

e) The microspheres observed under the optical microsphere are perfectly

spherical without any irregularities. Each microsphere vary in size and are
distributed randomly over the area.

f) The estimated size of the microspheres is 103.86 micrometer.

g) Factors that affect the microspheres size are density and viscosity of the
stabilizing solution or organic phase, concentration of emulsifier and surface area
of stirring handle.

Higher viscosity of an organic solvent compared to PLLA polymer will result in

smaller microspheres because of increased surface tension, leading to increased
breakage of microsphere.

For concentration of the emulsifier, the higher the concentration, the larger the
microspheres will be as emulsifiers reduces surface tension of the oil/water
phase, stabilizing the microsphere.

Surface area of the stirring handle is important as well. Smaller surface area of
the handle will cause smaller microspheres because of the excess shear stress it
exerts because of the concentrated pressure on the surface of the microspheres.
This results in bursting of the microspheres, creating smaller microspheres.

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