Introducing humidity and temperature as important parameters determining the size of electrosprayed chitosan nanoparticles

Particle size is an important parameter in determining quality of drug delivery systems. Electrospray is a novel and interesting approach to prepare polymeric nanoparticles. In this study, effect of four independent parameters on size of nanoparticles, prepared via electrospray, was investigated using artificial neural networks (ANNs). The parameters included concentration of polymer, applied voltage, humidity and temperature, of which, the last two were investigated for the first time in this study.The developed ANNs model showed that there is a complex and non-linear relation between the four input parameters and the size of prepared nanoparticles. The model also showed that applied voltage and temperature had small and reverse effects on the size. However, the dominant factors determining the size of the nanoparticles were humidity and polymer concentration: an optimum value was required for obtaining the smallest size. The values above or lower the optimum value made the particle size of generated nanoparticles larger.