Fabrication of dual layer polyvinyl alcohol transdermal patch: effect of freezing-thawing cycles on morphological and swelling ability

Abstract

The transdermal patch is polymeric-based patches containing a dispersed bioactive ingredient that deliver therapeutic agents at a constant rate through the human skin surface. In this study, the dual layer PVA patch was prepared using a combination of freezing-thawing (F-T) and electrospinning techniques to study the effect of F-T cycles on morphology structure and swelling ratio of the fabricated patch. The effect of F-T cycles on swelling ability as well as the morphological study of the patch was employed and characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and immersion of dual layer PVA patch for 24 hours in distilled water was calculated. Morphological structure of dual layer PVA patch has proved the correlation between the PVA cryogel and PVA electrospun nanofiber membrane. The results revealed that the dual layer PVA patch was successfully fabricated as the under layer PVA electrospun nanofiber membrane does not fully dissolve throughout the F-T process. Furthermore, in this study, it is shown that increasing of F-T cycles has decreased the swelling ability of the dual layer PVA patch. It also found that the presence of PVA electrospun nanofiber has also affected the swelling ability of the dual layer PVA patch due to the high surface ratio of the electrospun nanofiber membrane. The highest percentage of swelling ratio was found approaching 66% for dual layer PVA with 3 cycles (2L-3C), as for dual layer PVA with 5 cycles (2L-5C) the percentage found significantly lower (33%). The improvement of dual layer PVA patch can be utilized for drug release assessment and also could be good potential for transdermal drug delivery.