investigation of alginate-chitosan nanoparticles as a drug carrier for levothyroxine

Background: this study synthesized alginate-chitosan nanoparticles (alg/cs nps) as nanocarriers for the hydrophobic drug levothyroxine and investigated their nanoparticle size.objectives: alginate-chitosan nanoparticles were prepared through ionotropic gelation of the chitosan core followed by complexation with alginate. methods: the nanoparticles were characterized for particle morphology, size, and polydispersity index using transmission electron microscopy (tem) and photon correlation spectroscopy. results: alginate-chitosan nanoparticles were found in a nanoscale spherical shape with an average particle size of 90 - 110 nm. results indicated that the release mechanism depends on dissolution in the initial hours. for levothyroxine release from alg/cs nps, the higuchi model fits better than the other models. the drug release kinetics were investigated, and the release kinetics data were best fitted with the higuchi model. conclusions: levothyroxine was released mainly in the first 20 hours at an average rate of up to 78% at ph 7.4.