Study on montmorillonite/insulin/TiO2 hybrid nanocomposite as a new oral drug-delivery system

•Montmorillonite/insulin nanocomposites were coated with different amounts of TiO2.•Incorporation of TiO2 enhanced the drug entrapment, and reduced the drug release.•This method could be used in altering the insulin utilization from injection to oral.

This study was conducted in two main stages. In the first stage, drug-loaded montmorillonite nanocomposites were prepared by intercalation of insulin into the montmorillonite layers in acidic deionized (DI) water. In the second stage, to increase the release of insulin from the prepared nanocomposites they were coated with TiO2, an inorganic porous coating, by using titanium (IV) butoxide, as precursor. The prepared nanocomposites were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, FE-SEM, BET, DLS and Zeta potential analysis. After investigating the release behaviour of the nanocomposites by UV-Vis absorbance technique, the results revealed that incorporation of porous TiO2 coating increased the drug entrapment noticeably, and decreased the amount of drug release, so that nanocomposites without and with TiO2 coating released the drug after 60 min and 22 h in pH 7.4, respectively. These results could be used in converting the insulin utilization from injection to oral.

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