Biocompatible microemulsionsformulation, encapsulation of bioactive compounds and their potential applications

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Örebro Studies in Chemisty 14 I

ÖREBRO 2014 2014

ARG

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argyro kalaitzaki was born in the Greek island of Chios and grew up in Athens. She studied Chemical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). After that, she obtained her Postgraduate Dip-loma in the field of “Environment and Development” at the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering (NTUA). Following, she enrolled at the School of Science and Techno-logy, in the department of Chemistry at Örebro University (Sweden) and in cooperation with the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Greece), she pursued her PhD study.

This thesis was based on the formulation of thermodynamically stable micro-emulsions using exclusively safe, biocompatible and inexpensive materials. In order to evaluate the potential applications of the proposed microemulsions, it was of utmost importance to study the characteristics and structures of these systems. Under this perspective, various techniques, such as spectros-copic (EPR), scattering (DLS, SAXS) as well as conductivity measurements were applied. Microemulsions are considered excellent nanocarriers and have received a great attention in recent years for various applications, including foods, agrochemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and many others. Due to the presence of both lipophilic (oil phase) and hydrophilic (aqueous phase) domains, they have the potential to encapsulate a wide variety of guest mole-cules (hydrophilic, amphiphilic or hydrophobic). The present thesis focuses on three applications, a pharmaceutical, a food and an agrochemical, and it was investigated the influence of the incorporated bioactive compounds (drugs, antioxidants and biocides, respectively) on the nanostructure. Moreover, fully aqueous dilutable microemulsions were obtained and characterized as promising formulations for certain food, cosmetics and drug applications. A great deal of additional information is available in the present thesis.

issn 1651-4270 isbn 978-91-7529-029-4