Improvement of Drug Release and Compatibility between Hydrophilic Drugs and Hydrophobic Nanofibrous Composites

Electrospinning is a flexible polymer processing method to produce nanofibres, which can be applied in the biomedical field. The current study aims to develop new electrospun hybrid nanocomposite systems to benefit the sustained release of hydrophilic drugs with hydrophobic polymers. In particular, electrospun hybrid materials consisting of polylactic acid (PLA):poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) blends, as well as PLA:PCL/halloysite nanotubes-3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (HNT-ASP) nanocomposites were developed in order to achieve sustained release of hydrophilic drug tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) using hydrophobic PLA:PCL nanocomposite membranes as a drug carrier. The impact of interaction between two commonly used drugs, namely TCH and indomethacin (IMC) and PLA:PCL blends on the drug release was examined. The drug release kinetics by fitting the experimental release data with five mathematical models for drug delivery were clearly demonstrated. The average nanofiber diameters were found to be significantly reduced when increasing the TCH concentration due to increasing solution electrical conductivity in contrast to the presence of IMC. The addition of both TCH and IMC drugs to PLA:PCL blends reduced the crystallinity level, glass transition temperature (T(g)) and melting temperature (T(m)) of PCL within the blends. The decrease in drug release and the impairment elimination for the interaction between polymer blends and drugs was accomplished by mobilising TCH into HNT-ASP for their embedding effect into PLA:PCL nanofibres. The typical characteristic was clearly identified with excellent agreement between our experimental data obtained and Ritger–Peppas model and Zeng model in drug release kinetics. The biodegradation behaviour of nanofibre membranes indicated the effective incorporation of TCH onto HNT-ASP.