3D high spatial resolution visualisation and quantification of interconnectivity in polymer filmsShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: International Journal of Pharmaceutics, ISSN 0378-5173, E-ISSN 1873-3476, Vol. 587, article id 119622Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
A porous network acts as transport paths for drugs through films for controlled drug release. The interconnectivity of the network strongly influences the transport properties. It is therefore important to quantify the interconnectivity and correlate it to transport properties for control and design of new films. This work presents a novel method for 3D visualisation and analysis of interconnectivity. High spatial resolution 3D data on porous polymer films for controlled drug release has been acquired using a focused ion beam (FIB) combined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The data analysis method enables visualisation of pore paths starting at a chosen inlet pore, dividing them into groups by length, enabling a more detailed quantification and visualisation. The method also enables identification of central features of the porous network by quantification of channels where pore paths coincide. The method was applied to FIB-SEM data of three leached ethyl cellulose (EC)/hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) films with different weight percentages. The results from the analysis were consistent with the experimentally measured release properties of the films. The interconnectivity and porosity increase with increasing amount of HPC. The bottleneck effect was strong in the leached film with lowest porosity.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V. , 2020. Vol. 587, article id 119622
Keywords [en]
3D, Bottlenecks, Focused ion beam, Geodesic channels, Geodesic paths, Interconnectivity, Polymer, Porosity, Scanning electron microscopy, Visualisation, ethyl cellulose, hydroxypropylcellulose, porous polymer, Article, controlled drug release, data visualization, electron beam, focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy tomography, image segmentation, priority journal, quantitative analysis, three-dimensional imaging
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-45611DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2020.119622Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85088025587OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-45611DiVA, id: diva2:1458283
Note
Funding details: VINNOVA; Funding details: Stiftelsen för Strategisk Forskning, SSF; Funding text 1: This work was funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). The authors are grateful for the financial support. We wish to thank AstraZeneca for providing the material and Chalmers Material Analysis Laboratory for their support of microscopes. We also thank Prof. Aila Särkkä and everyone involved in the SSF project for valuable feedback; and for the feedback given at workshops organized by the Chalmers center SuMo Biomaterials and within the project COSIMA, both funded by Vinnova.
2020-08-142020-08-142023-05-26Bibliographically approved