The acrylated palm oil (APO) nanoparticle is a potential product that can be used as carriers in
medical field. The main focus of the present study was to study the potential of the APO
nanoparticles for used in a controlled drug delivery system. The microemulsion system is used as a
medium to incorporate an active substance such as Thymoquinone (TQ) into the APO polymeric
micelle and then the radiation technique is used as a tool for the synthesis of TQ-loaded APO
nanoparticle. The nano-size TQ-loaded APO particles resulted the particle size of less than 150 nm
with spherical in shape. The TQ release profile was carried out in potassium buffer saline (PBS)
solutions (pH 7.4) at 37
oC. And, the zero-order model has been used to determine the mechanism
of the drug release from the corresponding nanoparticles, respectively. The TQ release was found
to be sustained and controlled in pH 7.4. At pH 7.4, the release of TQ followed the zero-order
model. The in-vitro drug release study showed a good prospect of the APO nanoparticle on being a
potential drug carrier as there are toxic against colon cancer cells and not toxic towards normal
cells. This suggested that the APO product produce using this radiation technique can be
developed into different type of carrier systems for controlled drug release applications.
Poly(lactic acid) (PLA)-based nanocomposites filled with graphene nanoplatelets (xGnP) that contains epoxidized palm oil (EPO) as plasticizer were prepared by melt blending method. PLA was first plasticized by EPO to improve its flexibility and thereby overcome its problem of brittleness. Then, xGnP was incoporated into plasticized PLA to enhance its mechanical properties. Plasticized and nanofilled PLA nanocomposites (PLA/EPO/xGnP) showed improvement in the elongation at break by 3322% and 61% compared to pristine PLA and PLA/EPO, respectively. The use of EPO and xGnP increases the mobility of the polymeric chains, thereby improving the flexibility and plastic deformation of PLA. The nanocomposites also resulted in an increase of up to 26.5% in the tensile strength compared with PLA/EPO blend. XRD pattern showed the presence of peak around 26.5° in PLA/EPO/xGnP nanocomposites which corresponds to characteristic peak of graphene nanoplatelets. Plasticized PLA reinforced with xGnP showed that increasing the xGnP content triggers a substantial increase in thermal stability. Crystallinity of the nanocomposites as well as cold crystallization and melting temperature did not show any significant changes upon addition of xGnP. However, there was a significant decrease of glass transition temperature up to 0.3wt% of xGnP incorporation. The TEM micrograph of PLA/EPO/xGnP shows that the xGnP was uniformly dispersed in the PLA matrix and no obvious aggregation was observed.
A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), with the ability to bind Pb(II) ion, was prepared using the non-covalent molecular imprinting methods and evaluated as a sorbent for the Pb(II) ion uptake. 4-vinylbenzoic acid was chosen as the complexing monomer. The imprinted polymer was synthesized by radical polymerization. The template (Pb(II) ions) was removed using 0.1 M HCl. As a result, the efficient adsorption was found to occur at pH 7. The result also showed the applicability of the Langmuir model for the sorption, with the maximum sorption capacity of 204.08 μg/mg.
Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) particles for selective extraction of Pb2+ from aqueous media were prepared using non-covalent molecular imprinting methods. 2-vinylpyridine was chosen as the complexing monomer. The imprinted polymer was synthesised by radical polymerisation. The template (Pb2+) was removed by leaching with 0.1 M HCl. The polymer particles (imprinted and non-imprinted) were characterised by IR spectroscopy. The effect of different parameters such as pH, kinetic, adsorption isotherm and selectivity were evaluated. The maximum adsorption capacity is 150 μg Pb2+/mg MIP. The adsorption efficiently occurred at pH 6. The selectivity coefficients of the imprinted polymer particles for Pb2+/Zn2+ and Pb2+/Al3+ were 13.55 and 1.71, respectively.