Poly(ethylene glycol) Hydroxystearate-Based Nanosized Emulsions: Effect of Surfactant Concentration on Their Formation and Ability to Solubilize Quercetin

Quercetin is a natural compound that has shown several biological activities. However, it displays poor water solubility and, therefore, low bioavailability. In this study, oil-in-water nanosized emulsions were obtained by the hot solvent diffusion method, using castor oil as oily phase and poly(ethylene glycol) (660)-12-hydroxystearate (PEG 660-stearate) and lecithin as surfactants. The effect of the PEG 660-stearate concentration on the droplet size of the nanosized emulsions and on the ability of these systems to load quercetin was investigated. Dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cryo-TEM, and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) were used to characterize the systems. We have demonstrated that a critical concentration of PEG 660-stearate (2.5 wt%) was needed to obtain colloidal dispersions displaying microemulsion characteristics. This colloidal dispersion, that was not optically birefringent, was constituted by a monodisperse population of 20 nm-large droplets, and exhibited excellent stability. Besides, this system was able to solubilize five times more quercetin than nanoemulsions prepared using 0.25 wt% PEG 660-stearate. SAXS results suggest that the spherical droplets have a core-shell structure. With regard to the hot solvent diffusion method, both diffusion of the solvent towards the aqueous phase and increase of the temperature above the phase inversion temperature (PIT) of PEG 660-stearate appeared to be required for obtaining clear and isotropic colloidal dispersions.