Structural, thermal, spectral and sustainable drug release studies of deoxyfluorouridine tagged poly(d,l-Lactide)

The deoxyfluorouridine tagged poly(d,l-Lactide) was prepared by the ROP method using deoxyfluorouridine (DF) as an initiator and stannous octoate (SO) as a catalyst under N2 atmosphere at 160 °C for 2 h. ROP of d,l-Lactide was also achieved at various monomer to initiator [M/I] ratios whereas the ratio of monomer to catalyst [M/C] was kept at 1000. For polymer characterization, FT-IR, 1H-NMR, UV–visible, fluorescence emission spectra, SEM, GPC, DSC, TGA and POM were used. The FT-IR based RI[C=O/C–H] indicated a 0.23 order of ROP of d,l-Lactide. The increase in Tm of PLLA was observed while increasing the ratio of [M/I]. The GPC results declared the ring-opening activity of DF toward d,l-Lactide. The presence of microvoids made the PLLA as a suitable candidate for sustainable drug delivery applications. The release of DF from PLLA was examined to assess the drug release efficiency of the prepared polymer system at three different pH levels.