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has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Drug Loading on Microneedles

  AUTHORS: Meng-Hsuan Hsiao, Hsiu-Feng Ye, Ta-Jo Liu, Jane Wang

  KEYWORDS: Microneedle, Drug Loading, Dropping, Dipping, Capillary Number, Capillary Rise

  JOURNAL NAME: Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science, Vol.9 No.2, April 23, 2019

  ABSTRACT: An experimental study was carried out to investigate the amount of drugs loaded on microneedles. The microneedles were made with poly (lactic acid). Aqueous poly (vinyl alcohol) solutions were prepared as drug solutions. Two drug loading approaches, i.e., dropping and dipping, were examined. It was found that capillary number is the only relevant dimensionless group for the two methods. For the dropping approach, dried drugs will spread near the bottom of a microneedle patch provided the surface tension is low. As for the dipping approach, both a single microneedle and an array of nine microneedles were examined. For a single microneedle, high capillary rises before pulling and pulling speed are two key factors to increase the drug loading volume. For an array of microneedles, the effect of capillary rise owing to the interaction between microneedles would increase the drug loading volume several times higher than a single microneedle of the same dimension.