Chitosan-based polymer micelles have a splendid outlook for drug delivery owing to the interesting properties, abundance, and low cost of chitosan. A new method of preparation of water-soluble N-palmitoyl chitosan (PLCS) which can form micelles in water is developed in this paper. The preparation of PLCS was carried out by swollen chitosan coupling with palmitic anhydride in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The degree of substitution (DS) of PLCS was in the range of 1.2-14.2%, and the critical aggregation concentration (CAC) of PLCS micelles was in the range of 2.0 x 10(-3) to 37.2 x 10(-3) mg/mL. The properties of PLCS micelles such as encapsulation capacity and controlled release ability of hydrophobic model drug ibuprofen (IBU) were evaluated. Experimental results indicated that the loading capacity (LC) of PLCS was approximately 10%. The drug release strongly depended on pH and temperature: low pH and high temperature accelerated drug release markedly. Moreover, the IR, 1H NMR, and TEM of PLCS, IBU-loaded PLCS, and a PLCS-IBU physical mixture have been measured to show that IBU is loaded by PLCS micelles.

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