In the current scenario of delivering therapeutic agents to the target site requires an efficient drug delivery carrier which can deliver the drug only on the site of action in a sustained and controlled manner. Among many such carriers, microspheres fulfill all the parameters for an potent drug carrier. Microspheres are defined as free flowing powders of spherical shape, consisting of proteins or synthetic polymers, which are either biodegradable or non-biodegradable in nature and ideally having a particle size ranging from 1-1000 μm. The main aim of such novel drug delivery system is to overcome the limitations of conventional dosage forms and providing more patient compliance, increase bioavailability and more specifically targeted delivery of drugs or other active agents. This review articles deals with the ideal characteristics, types, methods of preparation, their characteristics evaluation, in vitro-in vivo correlation and applications of microsphere as drug carrier. There are various methods available today for the preparation of microspheres with the goal of achieving reproducibility and consistency with good entrapment efficiency.

Despite the much touted mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes, composites reinforced with nanotubes have failed to achieve mechanical properties which rival those present in conventional fiber reinforced polymer composites. This article describes an attempt to bridge this gap. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were synthesized using a chemical vapor deposition method and were dispersed in phenolic resin by both the wet and dry dispersion techniques before molding into composite bars (50 3 5 3 3 mm 3 ). Although no improvement in the mechanical properties of the MWCNT/phenolic composites was observed over the neat resin value when wet mixing dispersion was employed, an improvement of nearly 158% (160 MPa as compared with 62 MPa for neat resin) was achieved in 5 vol% MWCNT containing phenolic resin prepared by the dry mixing. POLYM. COMPOS.,

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