Abstract
Drug delivery systems (DDS) derived from drug‐loaded fibers have attracted increasing attention in recent years. In this study, drug‐loaded nanofibers with varying drug‐to‐polymer ratios were prepared using electrospinning with acyclovir (ACY) as the model drug and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as the filament‐forming matrix polymer. The compatibility of ACY with PAN was investigated by FTIR, DSC, XRD, and morphological studies. The obtained results clearly demonstrated that ACY had good compatibility with PAN and was able to be evenly distributed in the polymer fiber matrix. ACY present in the drug‐loaded fibers with a drug content of 10 wt % was in an amorphous state. As the ACY contents in the fibers increased up to 20 wt % drug crystals began to form and ACY separated from the fiber matrix. FTIR results illustrated that the main interactions between PAN and ACY was hydrogen bonding and data from ^1^H‐NMR showed that ACY was able to retain its chemical integrity during the electrospinning. All the fibers with varying drug content provided sustained drug release profiles over a 12‐h period. The drug‐loaded fibers prepared in this study could provide new approaches for developing novel transdermal DDS or skin topical DDS. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010