Use of alginate, chitosan and cellulose nanocrystals as emulsion stabilizers in the synthesis of biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles Nicoletta Rescignano a,⇑ , Elena Fortunati b , Ilaria Armentano b , Rebeca Hernandez a , Carmen Mijangos a , Rossana Pasquino c , José Maria Kenny a,b a Institute of Polymer Science and Technology, CSIC, Juan de la Cierva 3, Madrid 28006, Spain b Materials Engineering Centre, UdR INSTM, University of Perugia, Strada di Pentima, 4, 05100 Terni, Italy c Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy graphical abstract article info Article history: Received 9 October 2014 Accepted 12 December 2014 Available online 24 December 2014 Keywords: Poly(DL-Lactide-co-Glycolide) Biodegradable nanoparticles Cellulose nanocrystals Chitosan Sodium alginate Emulsion stabilizer abstract Biopolymeric nanoparticles (NPs) based on a biodegradable poly(DL-Lactide-co-Glycolide) PLGA copoly- mer matrix combined with alginate, chitosan and nanostructured cellulose crystals as three different nat- ural emulsion stabilizers, were synthesized by a double emulsion (water/oil/water) method with subsequent solvent evaporation. The morphological, thermal, chemical and rheological properties of the novel designed NPs and the effect of the different emulsion stabilizers used during the synthesis were deeply investigated in order to optimize the synthesis procedure and the development of biodegradable nanoparticles coated with natural polymers. The morphological analysis of the produced nanoparticles showed that all the different formulations pre- sented a spherical shape with smooth surface. Infrared spectroscopy investigations showed that the PLGA copolymer maintained its backbone structure and confirmed the presence of chitosan, alginate and cellu- lose nanocrystals (CNC) on the nanoparticle surface. The obtained results suggest that PLGA nanoparticles with CNC as emulsion stabilizer might represent promising formulations opening new perspective in the field of self-assembly of biodegradable nanomaterials for medical and pharmaceutical applications. Published by Elsevier Inc. 1. Introduction Nanoparticles (NPs) are submicron-sized polymeric colloidal particles studied extensively as particulate carriers in several phar- maceutical and medical applications [1,2]. The sub-micron size of NPs offers a number of distinct advantages over microparticles [3]. Probably the main advantage is the general relatively higher intracellular uptake of nanoparticles compared to microparticles [4]. A number of different polymers, both synthetic and natural, have been utilized in formulating biodegradable NPs [5]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2014.12.032 0021-9797/Published by Elsevier Inc. ⇑ Corresponding author. Fax: +34 915 644 853. E-mail address: nicoletta@ictp.csic.es (N. Rescignano). Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 445 (2015) 31–39 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Colloid and Interface Science www.elsevier.com/locate/jcis