Engineering 3D printed microfluidic chips for the fabrication of nanomedicines

Aytug Kara, Athina Vassiliadou, Baris Ongoren, William Malcolm Keeble, Richard Alan Hing, Katerina Lalatsa, Dolores Remedios Serrano Lopez*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Currently, there is an unmet need to manufacture nanomedicines in a continuous and controlled manner. 3D printed microfluidic chips are an alternative to conventional PDMS chips as they can be easily designed and manufactured to allow for customized designs able to reproducibly manufacture nanomedicines at affordable cost. The manufacturing of microfluidic chips using existing 3D printing technologies remains very challenging taking into account the intricated geometry of the channels. Here, we demonstrate the manufacture and characterization of nifedipine (NFD) polymeric nanoparticles based on Eudragit L-100 using 3D printed microfluidic chips with 1 mm diameter channels produced with two 3D printing techniques that are widely available, stereolithography (SLA) and fuse deposition modeling (FDM). Fabricated polymeric nanoparticles showed good encapsulation efficiencies and particle sizes in the range of 50-100 nm. SLA chips possessed better channel resolution and smoother channel surfaces, leading to smaller particle sizes similar to the one obtained by conventional manufacturing methods based on solvent evaporation, while SLA manufactured nanoparticles showed a minimal burst effect in acid media compared to nanoparticles fabricated with FDM chips. 3D printed microfluidic chips are a novel and easily amenable cost-effective strategy to allow for customization of the design process for continuous manufacture of nanomedicines under controlled conditions enabling easy scale-up and reducing nanomedicine development times while maintaining high-quality standards.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2134
Number of pages17
JournalPharmaceutics
Volume13
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Dec 2021

Keywords

  • microfluidics
  • stereolithography
  • FDM
  • SLA
  • nifedipine
  • nanomedicines
  • 3D Printing

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