We capitalized herein the inherent tortuosity of bicontinuous microemulsion to conceive nanostructured drug-delivery devices. First, we show that it is possible to synthesize bicontinuous materials with continuous hydrophilic domains of the poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) network entangled with continuous hydrophobic polymer domains, with dual-phase continuity being imposed by the bicontinuous microemulsions used as a soft template. Particular attention is paid to the microemulsion formulations using a surfmer to preserve the one-to-one replication of the bicontinuous nanostructure after polymerization. These materials keep a volume phase transition with temperature that allows considering them as drug carriers for controlled release. PNIPAM, which plays the role of the active ingredient reservoir, is confined in the bicontinuous structure. As expected, the PNIPAM enclosure limits the surface area in contact with the releasing aqueous solution and thus slows down the desorption of aspirin, which is used as a model drug. The hydrophobic polymers play the role of in situ-created transport barriers without hindering it as all the loaded aspirin in this bicontinuous structure still remains available.
Keywords: amphiphilic material; bicontinuous microemulsion; controlled release; poly(N-isopropylacrylamide); poly(butyl acrylate); poly(tert-butyl methacrylate); soft template; surfmer.