thermoresponsive membrane based on thermotropic liquid crystalline cholesteryl - (l-lacticacid)n system: study of its drug permeability

the rapidly increasing interest in functional materials with reversibly switchable physico- chemical properties has led to significant work on the development of stimuli responsive membranes. thermotropic liquid crystals with their exceptional properties have potentials for drug-delivery applications. thermoresponsive liquid-crystal-embedded membranes were investigated for the purpose of developing the drug delivery systems with thermal stimuli response. drug release occurs at temperatures above the phase transition temperature of thermotropic liquid crystals. therefore, they can control drug release in response to small temperature changes. in this work, the biocompatible and thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer cholesteryl-(l-lactic acid)n ,clan (n=30), was synthesized with accurate control of molecular weight via ring opening polymerization method. polymerization of l-lactide was carried out in the presence of cholesterol as an initiator and catalytic amount of tin (ii) octoate (sn(oct)2) at 150°c in 5 h. the number-average degree of polymerization of cla 30 was obtained from 1h nmr spectroscopy. the phase transition behavior of liquid crystalline cla30 was established by differential scanning calorimetry and polarizing optical microscopy. the resulting liquid crystalline cla30 was subsequently utilized to prepare cla30 -embedded cellulose nitrate membrane by adsorption method. the cla30-embedded cellulose nitrate membrane was used by an in-vitro drug penetration studies. acetaminophen was used as a model drug. the permeation study was carried out at different temperatures around glass transition temperature of polymer cla30 (37, 45 and 40°c, respectively). the results show that the cla30 -embedded cellulose nitrate membranes exhibit thermo-responsive sensitivity with controlled drug permeation.