The Layered silicate, Montmorillonite (MMT) as a drug delivery carrier

Controlled drug delivery system is a protocol to develop nanostructures and materials that can efficiently encapsulate drugs at high concentration, cross the cell membrane, and release the drug at the target site in a controlled manner for a prescribed period of time. This system can reduces the patient expenses, and risks of toxicity, while it can increase the drug efficacy, specificity, tolerability and therapeutic index of corresponding drugs. Therefore, construction of stimuli-responsive controlled-release systems is of crucial importance for the development of both fundamental science and clinical medicine. Both natural and synthetic materials have been tested and proposed as components of controlled drug delivery. Clay minerals, synthetic or natural, are an important, widely abundant, and low-cost class of materials with unique swelling, intercalation, adsorption, and ion-exchange properties. The safety proof data of clay minerals clearly suggest them to be non-toxic for transdermal application and oral administration. To accomplish controlled-release systems based on layered clay minerals, one of the best ways is to intercalate organic molecules into the interlayer gallery of clay minerals. Intercalation of organic molecules within the gallery of layered silicates offers a novel route to prepare organic and inorganic hybrids that contain properties of both the inorganic host and organic guest in a single material. In this article we will highlight the applications of clay in pharmaceutics as controlled drug delivery carrier.