Synthesis and surface modification of mesoporous silica nanoparticles and its application as carriers for sustained drug delivery.

High drug loading is one of the important issues in the drug delivery research, especially the drug delivery system by oral administration. If high drug loading carriers are utilized the times of drug intake could be significantly reduced. Accordingly in this study, ordered mesoporous SBA-15 modified with (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) was used as a carrier for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug and optimization of the loading process was done. SBA-15 silica material with rope-like morphology was synthesized and modified by post-synthesis method with APTES. The synthesized SBA-15 and modified SBA-15 were characterized by XRD, SEM, thermal analysis and FT-IR spectroscopy. Loading optimization experiments were performed by changing the factors affecting the drug loading, such as temperature, time, stirring rate, Ibuprofen/SBA-15 ratio. The results of drug delivery experiments showed that the surface modification of SBA-15 with amino groups significantly increases the drug loading and decreases the drug delivery rate.