A study of parameter effects on Polycaprolactone (pcl) microparticles prepared via solvent evaporation method-ultrasonicator probe assisted

PCL is a synthetic polymer that has been used a lot in biomedical application. However, different size of the PCL microparticles leads to different type of application. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of parameter to the size of polycaprolactone (PCL) microparticles that can be use in various types of applications. Parameter that has been controlled in this study are the amount of PCL, molecular weight of PCL, oil phase in volume fraction, processing time, amplitude and pulse of ultrasonicator probe. The preparation method that has been carried out was solvent evaporation method, assisted by high energy input of ultrasonicator probe to obtained smaller particles. Optical microscope and scanning electron microsocope was used to observe the size and morphology of PCL microparticles. In this study, it was found that, size of microparticles has been increased with the increasing amount of PCL followed by reducing amounts of oil phase in volume fraction which is considered due to unstable emulsion microparticles that have been produced when the insufficient of surfactant for emulsification process. For molecular weights of PCL, the size of microparticles obtained has been decreased when 14 000 kg/mol was used corresponded to different thickness of polymer and produce porous surface morphology. However, when the amplitude of ultrasonicator probe was increases, the size of microparticles that has been produced decreased due to the higher shear energy to produce emulsion microparticles solution during emulsification process. While for the processing time, it was found that the size will be decreases when the processing time decreased which consider due to the sufficient time for emulsification process. And lastly, the optimum pulse for this preparation method is 5 second stop, 5 second run to prevent heat build-up during emulsification process. In conclusion, parameter plays major role during preparation of PCL microparticles, which can facilate for various types of applications