Phases in the temporal multiscale evolution of the drug release mechanism in IPN-type chitosan based hydrogels

The study proposes modeling calcein release kinetics (considered as a hydrophilic drug model) from an interpenetrating network matrix of hydrogels, based on the combination of two polymers, of which chitosan is the most commonly used polymer. The release process is analyzed for different increasing time intervals, based on the evolution of the release kinetics. For each time interval, a dominant release mechanism was identified and quantitative analyses were performed, to probe the existence of four distinct stages during its evolution with each stage governed by a different kinetics model. An interesting and original aspect, which is analyzed through a novel approach, is that of drug release at longer time scales, which is often overlooked. It revealed that the system behaves as a complex one and its evolution can be described through a nonlinear theoretical model, which offers us new insights into its order-disorder evolution.