Production of polymeric micro- and nanostructures with tunable properties as pharmaceutical delivery systems

Abstract The production of novel graft copolymers based on poly-e-caprolactone (PCL) and polyaspartamide are useful to realize structures for potential biomedical applications. Here, the synthesis of pegylated PCL/polyhydroxyethyl aspartamide (PHEA) graft copolymers (PHEA-g-SUCC-PCL-g-PEG) with tunable composition, was achieved by followpling a synthetic strategy that involved first the grafting of preformed PCL on PHEA backbone, then polyethylen glycol (PEG), by using 1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) to speed up the condensation reaction. Graft copolymers with a Derivatization Degree (DD) in PCL ranging between 1.1 and 4.4 mol% were obtained, and processable with different technologies for the realization of micro- and nanostructures for biomedical applications. Pegylated graft copolymers, PHEA-g-SUCC-PCL-g-PEG, with a DDPEG of about 3.9 mol% were synthesized, and starting from these materials, structures such as fibers, micro- and nanoparticles were produced by different methods, such as microfluidics and nanoprecipitation.