Microfluidics for producing polylactide nanoparticles and microparticles and their drug delivery application

This review presents use of the microfluidics technique for the preparation of polylactide (PLA) based particles for developing novel drug delivery systems. Droplet-based microfluidics allow uniform single, double and higher order emulsions to be generated that yield highly uniform microspheres, microcapsules and polymersomes. Typically, the building blocks of these complex microparticle systems are PLA macromolecules, their copolymers with different comonomers and recently stereocomplexes composed of an equimolar mixture of poly(l-lactide) and poly(d-lactide). In addition, the technique offers several advantages over conventional emulsion methods and the highly uniform droplets obtained allow for encapsulation of small drug molecules in polymer network meshes or within their hollow interior. The novel approach in this area is to use the microfluidics technique to produce nanoparticles in the microfluidics channel by micromixing/nanoprecipitation in glass capillary devices. Therefore, this review is divided into three main sections in which we discuss the formation of microspheres from single emulsion droplets, microcapsules and polymersomes from higher order emulsion droplets, and nanoparticles from nanosuspensions in a microfluidic channel. Finally, we compare the drug release from these different particles, focusing mainly on those formed from sensitive or supramolecular networks. (c) 2018 Society of Chemical Industry