Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsamd Original Article Synthesis and characterization of a clay-alginate nanocomposite for the controlled release of 5-Flurouracil R Surya, Manohar D Mullassery*, Noeline B Fernandez, Diana Thomas Department of Chemistry, Fatima Mata National College, Kollam, 691001, India a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Received January 2019 Received in revised form 29 July 2019 Accepted August 2019 Available online xxx The scope of the present study is the synthesis and characterization of a nanocomposite based on natural bentonite clay and sodium alginate as a drug delivery system The nanocomposite was prepared by the grafted copolymerization of alginate, acrylamide and modified bentonite The characterization of the nanocomposite was carried out using FTIR, XRD, SEM, TG/DTA, Zeta potential, DLS and TEM analysis A hydrophilic anticancer drug 5-Flurouracil was chosen as the model drug to investigate the loading and release of the nanocomposite Swelling profile study revealed that maximum swelling was occurred at pH 6.8 The fitting of Peppas's kinetic model was analysed at pH 6.8 and the release kinetics was found to be more fitted to Korsemeyer-Peppas kinetic model having R2 ¼ 0.9840 Human Colorectal Adenocarcinoma cells-HT 29 was used for analysing cell viability The percentage of cell viability decreases from 46.65% to 20.12% when the concentration increases from 2.5 mg/ml to 10 mg/ml As an alternative to invivo models the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) study was conducted The study showed the better biocompatibility and non-toxicity of the nanocomposite © 2019 Publishing services by Elsevier B.V on behalf of Vietnam National University, Hanoi This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Keywords: Bentonite Controlled release Nanocomposite Kinetics Alginate Introduction In cancer treatment, in order to eradicate tumour, the therapeutics must be delivered in high doses to ensure sufficient and sustained therapy However, the sustained therapy in high dose is causing damages to healthy tissues such as liver, kidney and bone marrow along with the targeted cells Therefore it is desirable to develop stimuli-responsive controlled drug delivery systems (CDDS) CDDS work on the principle that drug is delivered only on the exposure to external stimuli thereby reducing the premature release of drugs The study on controlled drug release has been getting wide acceptance from the researchers due to its main advantages such as high drug efficiency, continuous release, and reduced side effects compared with conventional drugs in dosage [1,2] Recently preparation, characterization and applications of controlled drug delivery materials prepared from biopolymer/ inorganic compounds have much sought after owing to their peculiar properties such as biodegradability, controlled release characteristics and high encapsulation efficiency [3,4] Most * Corresponding author E-mail address: mdmullassery@gmail.com (M.D Mullassery) Peer review under responsibility of Vietnam National University, Hanoi hydrogels are prepared by the copolymerization of different vinyl monomers containing hydrophilic side groups with natural polysaccharides as well as their derivatives Apart from various advantages such as excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and nontoxicity, they suffer from disadvantages of low strength This disadvantage can be overcome by using natural clays as filler Clay minerals that predominantly have properties governed by smectites are called bentonites Montmorillonite is a major constituent of most bentonites (typically 80e90 wt%), the remainder being a mixture of mineral impurities including quartz, cristobalite, feldspar and various other clay minerals depending on the geological origin This group of clay minerals has a dioctahedral or tricotcahedral 2:1 layer structure, with isomorphous substitution that leads to a negative layer charge of less than 1.2 per formula unit Interlayer spacing varies between 10 and 15 Å and are generally dependent on the nature of the exchangeable cation and relative humidity Montmorillonites are dioctahedral smectites with layer charges predominantly in octahedral and tetrahedral sites, respectively The general formula of the montmorillonite ex tet group can be represented as (Mỵ x ) [(Si8) (M(III)4oct x ỵ xM(II)x) O20(OH)4] , where M is the exchangeable cation present in the interlayer (e.g Naỵ) and M(III) and M(II) are nonexchangeable octahedrally trivalent and divalent cations (e.g Al3ỵ and Mg2ỵ) respectively, and the layer charge is 0.5 < x