مشخصات پژوهش

Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) are organic nano-carriers for drugs [1]. This type of nano-carriers consists of a lipid phase including a solid fat and liquid oil and an aqueous phase contains a solution of non-ionic surfactants or ionic and non-ionic surfactant mixture. β- carotene is a combination of carotenoids and natural antioxidant and used as active ingredient in dietary supplements and pharmaceuticals. The nature of β-carotene makes it sensitive against environmental factors [2]. So, this shows the importance of its protection from the environmental conditions. In the present work, synthesis of β-carotene loaded NLCs was optimized by response surface methodology (RSM) and its characterization and performance were evaluated by several qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques (Fig.1a, b). The proposed NLCs was made from the palm fat and edible olive oil and the mixture of sodium dodecyl sulfate and tween 80 as surfactant. Based on the obtained RSM model the impact of fat weight, temperature and the ratio of surfactants on the nano-carrier size were calculated. After characterization of synthesized nano-carries using SEM, DLS and FT-IR, quality and performance of the proposed β-carotene loaded NLCs such as fatty acid profile, loading yield and release of β-carotene from NLCs were investigated by GC and HPLC, respectively.