Title: sustained delivery
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - sustained delivery
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13920
Status: current

Definition
Supply of a substance from a container where it is temporarily entrapped for the sake of achieving a prolonged action.

Notes
1) In some cases, the container is a polymer processed as implant, film, microparticle, or nanoparticle, auto-assembly of molecules, or a macromolecule.
2) The substance can be temporarily embedded, dissolved, or covalently bound.
3) The term is relevant to the release of substances like pesticides, dyes, drugs, etc.
4) In the case of sustained delivery according to required specifications, the use of controlled delivery is recommended.

Related Terms
- controlled delivery: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13886
- implant: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13936
- microparticle: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13910

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 377. 'Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 396 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13920/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13920/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13920/xml

Citation: Citation: 'sustained delivery' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13920
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-06-04T19:17:56+00:00