High Throughput Preparation of Poly(Lactic-Co-Glycolic Acid) Nanoparticles Using Fiber Fluidic Reactor

Polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) have a variety of biomedical, biotechnology, agricultural and environmental applications. As such, a great need has risen for the fabrication of these NPs in large scales. In this study, we used a high throughput fiber reactor for the preparation of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) NPs via nanoprecipitation. The fiber reactor provided a high surface area for the controlled interaction of an organic phase containing the PLGA solution with an aqueous phase, containing poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as a stabilizer. This interaction led to the self-assembly of the polymer into the form of NPs. We studied operational parameters to identify the factors that have the greatest influence on the properties of the resulting PLGA NPs. We found that the concentration of the PLGA solution is the factor that has the greatest effect on NP size, polydispersity index (PDI), and production rate. Increasing PLGA concentration increased NP sizes significantly, while at the same time decreasing the PDI value. The second factor that was found to affect NP properties was the concentration of PVA solution, which resulted in increased NP sizes and decreased production rates. Flowrates of the feed streams also affected NP size to a lesser extent, while changing the operational temperature did not change the product's features. In general, the results demonstrate that fiber reactors are a suitable method for the large-scale, continuous preparation of polymeric NPs suitable for biomedical applications.