ISSN: 0970-938X (Print) | 0976-1683 (Electronic)
An International Journal of Medical Sciences
Sivakumar Manickam
University of Nottingham, Malaysia
Posters & Accepted Abstracts : Biomed Res
DOI: 10.4066/biomedicalresearch-C4-011
An increasing number of newly developed drugs are sparingly soluble in water and are often also insoluble in organic solvents, and thus the formulation of these drugs is a key impediment to their clinical application. Owing to their exceedingly low solubility, these drugs frequently also possess poor bioavailability. Common ways of solving this problem include the use of solubilizers, cyclodextrins, and mixtures of solvents. But these methods have various shortcomings. An alternative in attempts to overcome the obstacles existing with these methods is the formulation of drugs as nanoemulsions induced by simple processing as any new simple process technology in the generation of nanoemulsions will have direct impact and great promise for the future of cosmetics, diagnostics, drug therapies and biotechnologies. Cavitation offers a simple way to generate various pharmaceutical nanoemulsions. Besides nanoemulsions, cavitation is also very powerful in the generation of functionalised carbon nanomaterials to be employed potentially in the pharmaceutical area. Where, cavitation seems to be promising in terms of reducing the time, avoiding the use of toxic or complicated agents, reducing the number of stabilisers/surfactants and reducing the separation/purification problems. In case of graphene, it results in an exceptionally stable dispersion. Whereas, for CNTs cavitation renders them dispersing into water and stabilised them longer. For fullerene, it enhances the number of hydroxyl groups on the surface which in turn increased the solubility in water. Overall, employing cavitation provides a facile strategy to overcome the inherent disadvantages existing with the traditional methods in the generation of nanoemulsions and in the functionalisation and dispersion of carbon nanomaterials, the resultant of which are very useful in drug delivery and in biosensing.
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