Stability study and lyophilization of vitamin E-loaded nanocapsules prepared by membrane contactor

In this research, we studied the accelerated stability of vitamin E-loaded nanocapsules (NCs) prepared by the nanoprecipitation method. Vitamin E-loaded NCs were optimized firstly at the laboratory scale and then scaled up using the membrane contactor technique. The optimum conditions of the membrane contactor preparation (pilot scale) produced vitamin E-loaded NCs with an average size of 253 nm, polydispersity index 0.19 and a zeta potential -16 mV. The average size, polydispersity index and zeta potential values were 185 nm, 0.12 and -15 mV, respectively for the NCs prepared at laboratory scale. No significant changes were noticed in these values after 3 and 6 months of storage at high temperature (40±2 °C) and relative humidity (75±5%) in spite of vitamin E sensitivity to light, heat and oxygen. The entrapment efficiency of NCs prepared at pilot scale was 97% at the beginning of the stability study, and became (95%, 59%) after 3 and 6 months of storage, respectively. These values at lab-scale were (98%, 96%, and 89%) at time zero and after 3 and 6 months of storage, respectively. This confirms the ability of vitamin E encapsulation to preserve its stability, which is one major goal of our work. Lyophilization of the optimized formula at lab-scale was also performed. Four types of cryoprotectants were tested (poly(vinyl pyrrolidone), sucrose, mannitol, and glucose). Freeze-dried NCs prepared with sucrose were found acceptable. The other lyophilized NCs obtained at different conditions presented large aggregates.