Chitosan nanoparticles: Preparation, size and size dispersion evaluation

Chitosan nanoparticles have been extensively applied in medical and pharmaceutical application as promising drug delivery systems. In this research, monodisperse chitosan nanoparticles were prepared by ionic gelation method using sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) as cross-linking agent. The purpose of this study was to prepare chitosan/TPP nanoparticles with different particle size and spherical shape for developing injectable drug delivery systems. We investigate the effect of various parameters on the formation of chitosan/TPP nanoparticles and found that particle size was highly influenced by chitosan concentration, TPP concentration, mass ratio of chitosan to TPP, acetic acid concentration and pH adjustment. The optimized nanoparticles exhibited a mean diameter of 125 nm with a polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.129. This monodisperse spherical nanoparticle without aggregation can be applied in future for injectable drug delivery systems