Preparation And Quality Evaluation On Microcapsule Of Volatile Oils And Alkaloids

Based on the medical research of existing154varieties of traditional Chinese patent medicine, nux vomica, frankincense, myrrh, cassia twig and chuanxiong were selected as the crude herbs to treat the rheumatic disease. Moreover, alkaloid and volatile oils from crude drugs were as capsule-core to prepare microcapsules.Orthogonal experimental method was applied to optimize extraction process in alkaloids of semen strychni. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), the volatile oils of frankincense, myrrh, cassia twig and chuanxiong were analyzed to determine the chemical components. HPLC analysis methods of cinnamaldehyde、brucine and strychnine were established. From the HPLC assay, cinnamaldehyde content in the volatile oil from cassia twig was91.45%, the contents of brucine and strychnine in alkaloid were36.59%and56.51%, respectively.For the purpose of improving the stability of the volatile oil, lowering the toxicity of alkaloid, microcapsules were prepared by the emulsion solvent diffusion. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of cinnamonaldehyde and the drug loading (DL) of alkaloids were used as quality evaluation indexes. Orthogonal experimental method was applied to optimize the experimental conditions. The optimized conditions were as follo wings:20%of capsule material concentration,2%of emulsifier the concentration, capsule core:capsule material (w: w)=1:21, and the ratio of organic phase to aqueous phase1:5. Under the optimum conditions, the EE and DL were57.28%and11.48%:the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results demonstrated that there were some holes on the surface of the microcapsules, which contributed to the release of the drug. Also the microcapsules were not adhesion, had a better fluidity. The results of GC-MS qualitative experiment indicated that after microncapsulation, the chemical compositions were not changed much. However, the relative percentage of some components changed.In vitro dissolution experiments indicated that volatile oils in the microcapsules had a sustained-release effect, but alkaloids of microcapsules did not well release, having a strong inhibition. In order to improve the dissolution rate of alkaloids and make the causes of release inhibition clealy, further study was needed to do.