Loading Behavior of pH-Responsive P(MAA-co-EGMA) Hydrogel Microparticles for Intelligent Drug Delivery Applications

Abstract

pH-responsive P(MAA-co-EGMA) hydrogel microparticles were synthesized via dispersion photopolymerization and the feasibility of the particles as the cosmetic formulation was investigated. Rh-B and the functional materials for the cosmetic application such as ascorbic acid, adenosine, EGCG, and arbutin were loaded in the P(MAA-co-EGMA) hydrogel microparticles in order to examine the interaction between the hydrogel and the loaded materials. In the loading experiments, Rh-B showed the highest loading efficiency to the P(MAA-co-EGMA) hydrogels due to the electrostatic attraction between the negative charge of the hydrogels and the positive charge of Rh-B at the ionized states. However, the functional materials showed relatively low loading efficiencies because of the electrostatic repulsions between the negative charges of both the hydrogels and the materials at the ionized states. In addition, P(MAA-co-EGMA) hydrogel microparticles showed pH-responsive release behavior of Rh-B according to the external PH changes.