DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF LAWSONE (HENNA) NANOEMULSION FOR ANTIFUNGAL AND ANTI-BACTERIAL ACTIVITY

Nanoemulsions, also mentioned as submicron emulsions, ultrafine emulsions and miniemulsions, are submicron-sized colloidal particulate systems considered as thermodynamically and kinetically stable isotropic dispersions; they contain two liquids like water and oil (immiscible), stabilized by an interfacial film consisting of a suitable surfactant and co-surfactant to form a single phase. In this research, lawsone nanoemulsion was developed by using Neem oil, tween 80 and ethanol. The formulation optimization was done by designing a ternary phase diagram followed by water dilution method. We developed 6 formulations (F1-F6) with different concentrations of oil and surfactant but drug concentrations are the same in all developed formulations. Developed formulations are evaluated for different parameters like pH, solubility, drug content, viscosity, transparency, size of globules and stability study, etc., and found to be appropriate in all tests. Since, oil/water Nanoemulsion had greater density than water/oil systems, the stiffness values increased significantly whenever the water content increases or when the system switched to oil/water type. Antimicrobial screening of the drugs and formulations were also screened against bacterial and fungal spices and got best results. The data shows that the particle size reduces as the ratio of oil to surfactants: co-surfactants increases. As a consequence, Nanoemulsion particles settled close to the body.