Preparation and evaluation of metformin microspheres by ionotropic gelation method

The purpose of this study was to formulate metformin microsphere in order to lessen its undesirable effects. To prepare metformin microspheres, the ionotropic gelation technique was used. In this process, two ionic components interact under specific circumstances. There needs to be a polymer in at least one of these two ionic components. Microspheres are formed by the simple interaction of an ionic polymer with an oppositely charged ion. In this procedure, the polymers employed were sodium alginate and chitosan; calcium chloride was used for the crosslinking process. Various parameters like particle size, Percentage yield, swelling index, Drug entrapment efficiency, Drug release study (In- vitro) and drug release kinetics studies were performed. From the experimental data it has been shown that chitosan and calcium chloride plays important role for variation of characteristic parameters of microspheres.