Supercritical CO2 generation of nanometric structure from Ocimum basilicum mucilage prepared for pharmaceutical applications.

Plant-derived polymers are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry due to their emollient, lack of toxicity, and irritating nature and low cost. In this work, basil seed mucilage was dried using supercritical carbon dioxide phase inversion technique to form a nanometric structure. The obtained polymeric structures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and compared with the oven-derived sample group. It was demonstrated that the product morphology could be controlled by altering the composition of methanol which functioned as the co-solvent in the nonsolvent stream. The most homogeneous product (60-nm mean pore size diameter, 78 m(2)/g BET surface area with no agglomeration) was obtained with 2.5% methanol. The FTIR data showed that the presence of hydroxyl and carboxyl groups suggested the bioadhesive property of basil seed mucilage was good and many active pharmaceutical compounds might be loaded to the resultant nanometric structure to enhance drug release. Furthermore, the FTIR analyses indicated that the nature of the final product did not change during the supercritical drying procedure.