Preliminary study of in vitro drug permeation using a pumpless microfluidic platform

Abstract

A 3-layer microfluidic device is developed using an inexpensive and readily accessible printer with commercially available printing material, polylactic acid. In addition, to serve as a semi-permeable membrane in microfluidic chip, chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol (CS/PVA) membrane was prepared using an electrospinning process. Electrospun membrane was prepared from a mixed solution of 10% w/v of PVA and 2% w/v of CS. The obtained electrospun CS/PVA membrane showed water resistance with a swelling degree of 97-98%. Their morphology observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed uniform and completely bead free structures at the CS/PVA volume ratio of 30/70, whereas at the volume ratio of 40/60 produced some bead structure. The electrospun membrane was assembled into 3D printing microfluidic chip to preliminary evaluate the drug permeability. By comparing between two nano-carrier systems for curcumin, the nano-carrier with smaller particle size showed faster drug permeation than another one with larger particle size. The developed 3D printing microdevices can be utilized gravity as the driving force, allowing for preliminary drug permeation screening with small amount of sample.

Keywords

• chitosan
• polyvinyl alcohol
• membrane
• microfluidic chip
• electrospinning