Chitosan-pectin-stearic acid film for controlled-release of curcumin

The release of curcumin from chitosan-pectin-stearic acid films was studied in the variation of the pH of the buffer solutions, the addition of ethanol in the buffer solution, the amount of loaded curcumin, the amount of stearic acids in the films. The chitosan-pectin films were prepared by addition of 1 acetic acid solution of chitosan into 1 aqueous pectin solution, followed by addition of isopropanol solution of stearic acid. The films were characterized using FT-IR spectrophotometer. The study of curcumin release was performed by soaking the film in buffer-ethanol solutions for 6 h and measuring the released curcumin by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The kinetics of releasing curcumin was analyzed using Korsmeyer-Peppas equations. The result showed that the releasing of curcumin was influenced by the amount of loaded curcumin, the amount of stearic acid in the film and buffer pH of the solution. The optimum releasing rate at buffer pH 7 in 40 ethanol solution was obtained when the amount of curcumin loaded and stearic acid were c.a. 55.5 and 136.4 mg/g film, respectively, which the curcumin release achieved 66.04. Releasing kinetics of the curcumin followed a Korsmeyer-Peppas model with a rate constant (k) of 7.5270 and n of 0.378. The curcumin release mechanism was mainly based on the diffusion mechanism. © 2019 Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Switzerland.