Fabrication of Doxorubicin Loaded Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Using Sonochemical-Precipitation Method - a Factor Screening

This research aimed to investigate the factors for doxorubicin (DOX) loaded zinc oxide nanoparticles (DOX-ZnO-NPs), prepared using sonochemical-precipitation with six factors, such as molarity of sodium hydroxide (NaOH), pH of NaOH, sonication temperature, sonication time, drying temperature and step for DOX incorporation. The factors under study affected, with varying magnitude the nanoparticles characteristics. DOX-ZnO-NPs, fabricated with zinc nitrate hexahydrate (0.1M), sodium hydroxide (0.5M), sonication temperature (25 degrees C), sonication time (25 min) and drying temperature 45 degrees C for 4 h yielded nanoparticles of size 83.63 +/- 1.75 nm, uniform-sized particles with polydispersity index of <0.5, bearing anionic zeta potential of -22.0 +/- 2.60 mV, while yield and encapsulation efficiency were >80%. This study helped fixing the factors, such as pH of NaOH, DOX incorporation step and final drying temperature of particles and narrowing down the six factors to only three critical attributes, including NaOH molarity, sonication temperature and sonication time.