Highly biocompatible chitosan with super paramagnetic calcium ferrite (CaFe2O4) nanoparticle for the release of ampicillin.

The CaFe2O4 nanoparticles (CFNP) were synthesized using the solution combustion method. The CFNP-chitosan-ampicillin was prepared by the ionic gelation method using tripolyphosphate (TPP). The CFNP, chitosan-CFNP, chitosan-CFNP-ampicillin materials were characterized by XRD, FT-IR and TGA analysis in order to evaluate the particle nature and size, the presence of functional groups and their thermal stability. The FESEM and EDAX analysis were performed to understand the surface morphology of the materials and the presence of CFNP in the material, respectively. The vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) analysis was performed to analyze the magnetic property of the chitosan-CFNP material. The squareness value of 0.1733 obtained by VSM measurements indicates the super paramagnetic nature of chitosan-CFNP. Taguchi orthogonal array method was applied to identify the significant impacting parameters for maximizing the drug encapsulation of chitosan-CFNP. The drug release studies showed that the drug was released rapidly in acidic medium as compared to the basic or neutral medium. The drug release kinetic data were fitted with different linear kinetic model equations and the best fit was obtained with Korsmeyer-Peppas model. The model drug ampicillin release from chitosan-CFNP was tested against staphylococcus epidermis bacteria through disc diffusion method for checking biocompatibility and antibacterial activity.