Synthesis of nanoparticles from carboxymethyl cellulose using one-pot hydrothermal carbonization for Drug Entrapment Studies

Porous nanomaterials have recently attracted a lot of attention due to various properties and potential applications. In this study, carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) were synthesized by the one-pot hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) using carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). Urea was used as the nitrogen source for carbonization. The presence of urea in CMC solution for carbonization resulted in CNPsu reduction in the diameter of particles from 4 micrometer to 1 micrometer. Activation process at high temperature for both the above samples resulted in nanoparticles with diameter of 51 nm and 31 nm, respectively. The positive effect of presence urea and its activation generated different functional groups including C-N, N-H, and C -(triple bond)- N with increasing aromatic rings that probably may help entrapment of drugs into them. On the other hand, activation CNPsu (ACNPsu) has the most aromatic rings with the lowest hydroxyl groups with 84.66% carbon and 12.29% oxygen in its structures. ACNPs, and ACNPsu exhibited a type I isotherm indicating microporous materials with a high surface area about 552.9 m2/g and 351.01 m2/g, respectively. The high surface area was characteristic of activated carbons with their high adsorption capacity. Thus, the synthesized materials were characterized using SEM, TEM, DLS, BET, FTIR, HNMR, and TGA techniques. Finally, the encapsulation of clindamycin drug (CD) with positive charge in different types of NPs with negative charge was investigated for drug delivery in biomedical engineering applications.