Cross-flow membrane emulsification technique for fabrication of drug-loaded particles

Cross-flow membrane emulsification is a new technique which was used in this study to achieve uniform and controllable emulsion systems. In this method, the droplet is individually formed at the pore on the surface of membrane in the more mild, controllable and efficient way as compared to traditional emulsification techniques. In this study, we used silicon nitride membranes of very precise parameters of pore size, shape and inter-pore distance in order to create curcumin loaded poly(d, l-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) particles. It was demonstrated that more uniform and pore-size dependent particles was created by using different membrane pore sizes (o200nm, o450nm and o2µm). Other factors that could impact particle size and morphology such as membrane polarity, concentration and volume of two phases were investigated. Further tests on comparison to mechanical stirring method were also realized.