SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF IONIC LIQUID TEMPLATED MESOPOROUS SILICA NANOPARTICLES AS A DRUG CARRIER FOR IBUPROFEN AND QUERCETIN

The development of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) as a carrier for drug
delivery was studied to overcome the limitation and improving oral bioavailability of
poor water solubility. In this study, a series of MSN was successfully synthesized using
different ionic liquids (ILs) as a template. Their versatile properties such as stability,
tuneable physical characteristics, great biocompatibility make them suitable candidates
for this approach. The synthesis of MSN typically involves solvents, silica precursor,
acid or base as catalyst, and surfactant as templates. Currently, the most well-known
template to generate MSNs are anionic surfactants like hexadecyltrimethylammonium
bromide (CTAB). However, the recent discovery of ionic liquid (IL) has been the great
potential as the alternative template materials for MSN other than anionic surfactant.
Therefore, in this work ionic liquid templated MSN were synthesized to develop the
drug delivery. This is due to the similar core structure of ILs with CTAB in which both
consist of inorganic or organic anions and bulky organic cations. One of the advantages
of ILs is the wide range of cations and anions that can be used to change their physical
properties. Five ILs and a surfactant with different alkyl side chains and types of anions
namely 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide ([C12mim][I]), 3-diethylamino
propanol vanillate (DV), 2-butylamino ethanol salicylate (BS), 3-diethylamino
propanol salicylate (DS), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)
imide ([bmim][NTf2]) and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) were used.
The used ILs has diverse combination of cations and anions that can help to improve
MSN property as carrier compared to CTAB. These MSNs were characterized using
FTIR, XRD, FESEM, HRTEM and N2 adsorption/desorption. All MSNs produced have
broad peaks, showing the presence of silica in amorphous form as observed by XRD
while the morphology of MSN revealed the agglomeration of particles and due to
parallel arrangement pores size in both for FESEM and HRTEM.