Effect of Lipids and Surfactants on Solid Lipid Nanoparticle Engineering

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) have attracted increasing attention during recent years. SLN consist of biodegradable physiological lipids or lipidic substances and stabilizers which are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) or have a regulatory accepted status. In engineering of SLN lipid and surfactant are very important as they influence the particle size and entrapment efficiency. This paper presents an overview about the effect of lipid and surfactant on formulation of SLN. Lipid crystallinity and polymorphism, the two criteria are studied for stability of SLN. Special attention is paid to the relation between drug loading profile and the release in lipid nanoparticle.