The use of MRI technology for studying the adhesion of microparticles
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The use of MRI technology for studying the adhesion of microparticles N. Sarvašová1*, J. Dvořák1, F. Štěpánek1 1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague, Technicka 5, 166 28 Prague 6, Czech Republic, Tel.: +420 220 443 048 *E-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION The very synthesis of functional microparticles is generally deemed the most necessary, but obviously not the only step in successful product development. The behavior of obtained microparticles has to be tested in environments resembling the end use conditions to ensure the desired functionality. During the testing, various problems concerning particles behavior can arise, e.g. unwanted adhesion (before the successful delivering of particles to the region of interest, they will adhere somewhere else, thus hindering the delivery of transported substance), insufficient adhesion (in cases, when the particle adhesion is desired, e.g. specific adhesion for targeted delivery, the end amount of adhered particles might not be sufficient for reaching the expected concentration of released substance, meaning adhesion is not strong enough under given conditions) or particle breakage (some particles are of more fragile structure, which can result in condition limitations, in which they can exist without damage). Furthermore, regarding specific adhesion, the demonstration of such particle functionality should also be performed before testing on living organisms, preferably in conditions resembling the end use. Current methods for testing the behavior of microparticles in complex media are generally conducted either in 2D differentiated microfluidic apparatus [1, 2] or tests performed on living organisms such as mice are preferred. However, 2D setting does not usually fully correspond with real conditions in application environment which the particles were meant for and animal tests tends to be time consuming and expensive. Therefore, this work is focused on designing the method suitable for an adhesion study in artificial flow system simulating the real conditions related to the desired end use of created microparticles. The step towards the observing of the adhesion in 3D complex media, which can be constructed either using synthetically prepared material[3] or real organic tissue[4], is allowed by introducing MRI technology. The imaging method itself is non-invasive, non-destructive and offers the possibility to monitor the situation in 3D differentiated layer in real time. Furthermore, the FeOx nanoparticles incorporated in utilized microparticles can act as a contrast agent, thus enhancing the contrast in yielded MRI scans. Regarding the microparticles used in this work, SiO2/Alginate/Fe3O4 composite microparticles were employed for the adhesion measurements. The very microparticles were prepared by drop-on-demand inkjet printing with sub sequential coating with silica as a result of sol-gel process using alkoxysilane precursors[5, 6]. They are easily modified (embedding with polymers, bio specific substances etc) due to t
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