Formulation and Chemical Stability in Aqueous Media of Cannabidiol Embedded in Cardanol-Based Nanovesicles

With relevance to an increasingly large set of environmentally friendly products and processes, a green nanoformulation based on renewables was proposed. Our attention was devoted to cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis extract compound known for its intrinsically low chemical stability that limits its therapeutic potential. In this work, the environmental stability of CBD was improved, adopting a new sustainable formulation. In particular, for the first time, CBD was embedded into a vesicular nanosystem based on cardanol (CA) known for its antioxidant properties which stabilize and avoid its degradation in an aqueous environment. Chemical and physical characterization of nanovesicles was carried out by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Exhaustive dialysis was used to purify samples, and the presence of CBD not embedded into nanodispersions was monitored by UV-vis spectrometry measurements until its disappearance. Identification and quantification of CA and CBD were performed after lysis of nanovesicles through a high-performance liquid chromatograph coupled to diode a array and mass spectrometer detectors (HPLC-DAD-MS). Furthermore, stability studies of green nanoformulations were performed at two different temperatures (20 and 4 °C) to ascertain their better preservation.