Microcapsules of alginate-chitosan – I: A quantitative study of the interaction between alginate and chitosan

The binding of chitosan to alginate beads was studied quantitatively by using radioactive labelled fractions of chitosan. The alginate-chitosan capsules were made either by dropping a solution of sodium alginate into a solution containing chitosan or by incubating calcium alginate beads in a solution of chitosan. The first procedure yielded a binding of 0.015 μg chitosan per mm2 of capsule surface, while the latter procedure yielded over 2 μg mm-2. The maximum obtained weight ratio of chitosan to alginate in a microcapsule after 24 h was 0.40. The binding of chitosan was markedly increased by reducing the number average molecular weight of chitosan below 20000 Da and by increasing the porosity of the alginate gel. The porosity was increased by producing homogeneous gels, and by adding calcium chloride to the chitosan solution during the membrane forming stage. The effect of calcium ions on the porosity of the gel was studied by experiments involving release of blue dextran from calcium alginate beads. The binding of chitosan was also found to increase with decreasing fraction of N-acetylations, FA, on chitosan in the range of FA=0.3 to FA=0, and with increasing pH in the range from pH 4 to 6. Capsules with a diameter of 500 μm had a higher weight ratio of chitosan to alginate after 24 h of binding than the capsules with the larger diameter of 1500 μm.