Fabrication of pickering double emulsions loaded with curcumin ionic liquids stabilized by cellulose nanocrystals, sodium alginate and lecithin
摘要
To enhance emulsifying ability in the encapsulation process, synergistic macromolecules have been proposed by fabricating co-stabilized cellulose nanocrystals with sodium alginate and lecithin to create efficient delivery systems for bio-based ionic liquids (ILs). Accordingly, we selected hydrophobic compounds, which exhibited low bioavailability, to develop drug delivery systems. The vitamin B3 and curcumin-based ILs, cholinium nicotinate [Ch][B3] and cholinium curcuminate [Ch][Cur], were achieved by a simple metathesis reaction and characterized by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy-Attenuated Total Reflection and performed to enhance their biological activity (antioxidant activity of 86.8 ± 0.13%) and water solubility over 15 times for curcumin. Exploring the potential use of such hydrophilic active ingredients, the Pickering double emulsions (W/O/W) were formed using cellulose nanocrystals to interact with a gel network of sodium alginate and lecithin for ILs encapsulation. The emulsion loaded with ILs exhibited good shear-thinning properties. The creaming index and visual appearance of curcumin-based ionic liquids as double emulsions ([Ch][Cur]-CAL-C) revealed good stability of 30-day storage at 4 °C and the release kinetics of 79.15 ± 3.89% over 24 h with high encapsulation efficiency (96.87 ± 0.00%). A promising synergistic impact on curcumin delivery to improve bioavailability and maintain molecular stability was successfully achieved in Pickering double emulsion and potentially used in food, pharmaceutical, and cosmeceutical applications.