Although the traditional hydrogels have shown great potential applications in designing drug delivery systems, the burst release of drugs remains an issue. In this work, we develop and evaluate a sustained release of ciprofloxacin using chitosan/hydroxyapatite/ê-carrageenan complexes. The size and structure of HA nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmittance electron microscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The ciprofloxacin-loaded hydrogel nanocomposites exhibited antibacterial activity against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria. Due to the introduced HA, the release of ciprofloxacin occurred in a sustained release manner. While the pristine chitosan/ê-carrageenan complex released about 98% of ciprofloxacin during 120 h, only 52 and 66% of the loaded drug was released from hydrogel nanocomposites containing high and low content of HA, respectively. The sustained release of ciprofloxacin from the hydrogel nanocomposites identifies them as a potential candidate for designing drug delivery systems with prolonged release ability.
Anti-Bacterial Agents Carrageenan