Sphered Shaped Calcium Carbonate Microparticles

Calcium Carbonate (CaCO₃) particles can be used as template cores in order to make drug carriers using Layer-by-Layer (LbL) deposition techniques. Here, we examine the role of different additives in order to improve the control of physicochemical properties of CaCO₃ particles such as size and morphology, which, in present techniques, are largely heterogeneous. In our work CaCO₃ particles were synthesized using two soluble salts, Calcium nitrate (Ca(NO₃)₂) and Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃), with additives like Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC). The microparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We have managed to fabricate CaCO₃ particles of different shapes (spheric, cubic and elliptic). We show that combining CMC with other additives improves further the overall uniformity and spherical morphology of the CaCO₃ particles. Our preliminary results indicate of the high potential in using CaCO₃particles as cores for LbL techniques with improved ability to control their size and shape in a uniform manner. The new composites proposed here could be used as drug carriers for treating different diseases, with improved uniformity, drug targeting and pharmacokinetics.