RADIATION-INDUCED RAFT COPOLYMERIZATION AND CROSSLINKING OF PALM OIL-BASED BLOCK COPOLYMERS NANOPARTICLES

Abstract

The polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) with desirable structures and properties extracted from palm oil  by using the gamma radiation-induced reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation and crosslinking technique. The raw materials of acrylated palm olein (APO) and polyol ester were used to create nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. The gamma radiation-induced RAFT offers a promising method to produce NPs with size of less than 150 nm and low molecular weight of 23,982 Da. The crosslinked poly(APO-b-polyol ester) copolymer NPs was determined as biodegradable, amorphous, and had good thermal properties as assessed by FTIR, XRD, DSC and TGA analyses. The discovery implied that radiation processing technology could be used to prepare and obtain the desired nanocarriers.