Abstract

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHLY STABILIZED NEEM OIL MICROEMULSION SYSTEM: A GREEN APPROACH

Nusrat Iqbal, Natish Kumar*, Amrish Agrawal and Jitendra Kumar

Abstract

The aim of this study is to stabilize the neem oil Microemulsion system as well as the active ingredient i.e azadirachtin which is the most reportedly known active ingredient although this is very unstable in water based formulations, by adding 4% lemon grass oil, stability of azadirachtin in neem oil microemulsion system improves significantly. Thermodynamic and kinetic stability data confirms that the system is highly stabilized without using any co-surfactant. The stability of microemusion system is further confirmed by various physio-chemical studies like droplet size, zeta potencial, surface tension measurement, ph, viscosity, transmittance remain same during accelerated temperature storage. HPLC results also shows that the samples having lemon grass azadirachtin content degradation rate is only 4-5% which is higher in neem ME without lemon grass samples. FTIR further verify the presence of lemon grass Phenolic group stretch at 3350 cm-1 Which shows that lemon grass is stabilizing agent as separate ingredient and not involved any chemical reaction with the neem.

Keywords: microemulsion, lemon grass, co-surfactant, thermodynamic stability etc.