Production of morphology-controllable porous hyaluronic acid particles using a spray-drying method

Hyaluronic acid (HA) porous particles with controllable porosity and pore size, ranging from 100 to 300 nm, were successfully prepared using a colloidal templating and spray-drying method. HA powder and polystyrene latex (PSL) particles, which were used as the precursor and templating agent, respectively, were mixed in aqueous solution and spray-dried using a two-fluid nozzle system to produce HA and PSL composite particles. Water was evaporated during spray-drying using heated air with a temperature of 120 °C. This simple process was completed within several seconds. The prepared particles were collected and washed with an organic solvent to dissolve the PSL templating agent. The porosity and pore size of the resulting particles were easily controlled by changing the initial mass ratio of precursor to templating agent, i.e., HA to PSL, and by altering the size of the PSL template particles.