The shelf-life of medicinal products plays a crucial role in providing accessible, affordable healthcare. Sodium alginate beads are a desirable delivery system for therapeutics due to their low cost of acquisition, accessibility – as they are sourced from naturally occurring algae – biocompatibility, and biodegradability. Green food coloring (GFC) was used as a model drug and encapsulated in alginate beads. Beads were stored under various conditions: frozen, dried, submerged in water, and for immediate use. The impact on GFC diffusion out of the alginate beads was studied by submerging the alginate beads in DI water, which served as a dissolution solution. The diffusion of food coloring was measured over time using UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The measured absorbance was converted into concentration using Beer’s Law. The dried beads remained intact, suggesting that water loss does not cause a collapse in the bead’s structure. Furthermore, the dried and wet-stored beads demonstrated similar release patterns as the immediate-use beads, suggesting that different storage methods can be utilized to limit transport costs or protect encapsulated materials. In contrast, freezing the beads resulted in damage to the beads’ integrity and significant loss of GFC before usage. These preliminary results show the potential of alginate beads to be used as an encapsulation vehicle and stored for a period of time to eventually be used for drug delivery.
