Study of sonication parameters on PLA nanoparticles preparation by simple emulsion-evaporation solvent technique

•Varying the power and time of the ultrasound probe allows tuning the average particle diameter and the narrowness of size distributions.•The Box-Behnken design improves and optimizes the polymeric nanoparticle preparation conditions using a simple emulsion-solvent evaporation technique.•The Modulation of the average particle diameter and the size distribution allows obtaining nanoformulations for applications for different pharmaceutical targets, which require specificity on size ranges.