Open AccessAutomatic production of double coated alginate microcapsules: Analysis of the experimental parameters by design of experiments
Author(s) -
Stefania Mazzitelli,
Giovanni Luca,
Azzurra Tosi,
Cosimo Balestra,
Lorenzo Capretto,
Claudio Nastruzzi
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
chemical industry and chemical engineering quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.189
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 2217-7434
pISSN - 1451-9372
DOI - 10.2298/ciceq0703117m
Subject(s) - nozzle , dispersity , biomedical engineering , calcium alginate , materials science , polymer , transplantation , computer science , biological system , composite material , mechanical engineering , calcium , surgery , biology , engineering , polymer chemistry , medicine , metallurgy
This paper describes a design of experiments (DoE) approach, of an automatic procedure for the microencapsulation of isolated neonatal porcine islets (NPI). Monodisperse droplets were prepared by a vibrational nozzle, using an alginate/polyornithine encapsulation procedure, that has been developed and validated in our laboratory to encapsulate pancreatic islets. Different experimental parameters were considered such as: frequency of vibration, amplitude of vibration, polymer pumping rate and distance between the nozzle and the gelling bath. The produced calcium-alginate gel microbeads displayed an excellent morphology as well as a very narrow size distribution. The automatically produced microcapsules did not alter morphology and viability and functional properties of the enveloped NPI. The optimization of this automatic procedure may provide a novel approach to obtain a large number of batches possibly suitable for large scale production of immunoisolated NPI for in vivo cell transplantation procedures in humans.