Skin Impedance Analysis for Drug Delivery: Integration of Poisson-Boltzmann-Nernst-Planck Model and Ebola Optimisation Algorithm

Abstract

Transdermal drug delivery (TDD) is a non-invasive approach for administering therapeutic medications through the skin. This research proposes a spine–leaf resistor–capacitor (SLRC) circuit to analyse the impedance characteristics of different skin layers during drug delivery. To optimise the SLRC circuit parameters, the Ebola Optimisation Algorithm (EOA) minimises errors and improves computational efficiency. The Poisson–Boltzmann–Nernst–Planck (PBNP) model is used to calculate input parameters such as ion concentrations and electrotransport flux, to derive the drug concentration based on input parameters. A MATLAB simulator calculates drug penetration across stratified skin regions. According to the SLRC results, the Montague, constant phase element (CPE), and Tregear models performed better in predicting drug penetration and electrotransport flux than more conventional models. Compared to the traditional Montague and Tregear models, the EOA improved performance by reducing the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) to as low as 0.134. The proposed model achieved an R2 value of 0.98 when validated against the impedance datasets, confirming high prediction accuracy. Furthermore, simulated results revealed that an optimal frequency of 4 × 10³ Hz provides the best impedance and drug penetration, demonstrating the importance of frequency and current density in increasing drug levels. The proposed model enhances the precision and efficiency of TDD, offering significant potential for clinical and pharmaceutical applications.