Shaping, Degradation And Drug Release Of Biosourced Particles Made From Acrylated Vegetable Oils

Abstract

The widespread employment of petroleum-based polymers is the cause of unsolved environmental problems, such as the pollution by microplastics. In this context, biodegradable plastics have attracted attention as new materials that can replace conventional ones in certain applications, especially those made from renewable resources such as acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO). While AESO has been shown to be used efficiently as a plasticizer or coating material, we show here that it can be used to make microparticles of simple and sophisticated shapes, including core-shell structures, using bulk shearing or microfluidic techniques. After characterizing the polymerization conditions, we show that these particles are degradable in mild chemical or enzymatic conditions, and that they can encapsulate fluorescent probes or hydrophobic molecules of therapeutic interest. Finally, we show that they can release these molecules using a well defined mechanism in simulated digestion fluids.