Chitosan-based nanocomposites have demonstrated numerous physicochemical, biological, and functional properties making them well-suited for a range of biomedical applications, particularly in drug delivery. In this study, a chitosan–zinc oxide nanocomposite (CS–ZnO NCs) was developed as a carrier for ciprofloxacin loading. The nanocomposite (CS-ZnO) was synthesized via an in situ redox reaction and characterized using Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–Visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). Ciprofloxacin was used as a model drug to assess the drug-loading capacity of the CS–ZnO NCs. The loading capacity and encapsulation efficiency within the CS-ZnO nanocomposite were assessed, yielding 58.5% ± 0.056 and 97.5% ± 0.056 respectively. The anti-bacterial activity was examined against Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive) demonstrated that cipro-loaded CS-ZnO NCs exhibited higher activity compared to individual (S. aureus : chitosan NPs (27 ± 0.02 mm), ZnO NPs (28 ± 0.01 mm), CS-ZnO NCs (27 ± 0.01 mm), and E. coli : chitosan NPs (29 ± 0.0 mm), ZnO NPs (29 ± 0.07 mm), CS-ZnO NCs (27 ± 0.08 mm)). Interestingly, the formulation showed greater activity against S. aureus (inhibition zone: 37 ± 0.01 mm) than E. coli (inhibition zone: 30 ± 0.01 mm), suggesting a combined effect among ciprofloxacin, ZnO NPs, and chitosan. Thus, this result indicates that CS-ZnO NCs could be employed as drug carrier platform for cipro, offering promising applications in anti-microbial therapy. However, drug release studies are required as part of future work to fully understand the developed system in detail.
Yeneneh et al. (Mon,) studied this question.