Bioinspired Design of Chitosan Spheres for Controlled Drug Delivery

The aim of this study was to implement a novel bioinspired process based on the superhydrophobic surface to produce organic solvent-free spheres for drug controlled release. Firstly, superhydrophobic substrate with large area was successfully constructed in one step by the electrospray approach. Then, by utilizing the as-synthesized superhydrophobic substrate the chitosan (CS) spheres with controllable sizes and drug loading contents were fabricated. The drug encapsulation efficiency was further carefully studied, and it was found that the encapsulation efficiencies were very high and could reach up to 92% and above. Finally, the drug release behaviors of the drug-loaded CS spheres were systematically investigated, and the results demonstrated that both the diameter of the CS spheres and the drug loading content influenced the drug release characteristics. This present approach opened up a new possibility for the development of novel drug delivery systems with controllable drug delivery property for a broad range of pharmaceutical and biomedical applications.