Titre du document / Document title

Rapid expansion of supercritical solution with solid cosolvent (RESS-SC) process : Formation of griseofulvin nanoparticles

Auteur(s) / Author(s)

THAKUR Ranjit ⁽¹⁾ ; GUPTA Ram B. ⁽¹⁾ ;

Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)

⁽¹⁾ Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849-5127, ETATS-UNIS

Résumé / Abstract

In the conventional RESS process, a supercritical solution is rapidly expanded through a nozzle to precipitate the solute as microparticles. The modeling of RESS has shown that the precipitated particles at the nozzle tip are on the order of 5-25 nm in size. However, for most solutes, the final particles experimentally obtained are on the order of 800-3000 nm in size, due to growth by coagulation in the expansion chamber. Another difficulty is that most of the pharmaceutical compounds have poor solubility in supercritical carbon dioxide (a fluid of choice). In this work, both challenges are addressed by utilizing a cosolvent that is solid at the nozzle exit conditions. The solid cosolvent (SC) enhances the solubility and provides a barrier for coagulation in the expansion chamber. The solid cosolvent is later remove from the solute particles by lyophilization (sublimation). The new process is termed as RESS-SC. A suitable solid cosolvent is menthol, which is solid below 35 °C (the typical nozzle exit temperature is 5-30 °C) and can be easily sublimed. The RESS-SC concept is demonstrated by producing nanoparticles of griseofulvin, an antifungal drug which has very low solubility in supercritical CO₂. With the use of the menthol cosolvent, griseofulvin solubility in supercritical CO₂ is increased by about 28-fold. With the use of a simple capillary nozzle, griseofulvin particles in the range of 50-250 nm were obtained, which is a 10-fold reduction from the conventional RESS process. The final powder is pure griseofulvin, free of any stabilizing agents. Particles are characterized by SEM, XRD, and DSC analyses. In addition, data and modeling of the solubility enhancement are presented.

Revue / Journal Title

Industrial & engineering chemistry research   ISSN 0888-5885   CODEN IECRED 

Source / Source

2005, vol. 44, n^o19, pp. 7380-7387 [8 page(s) (article)] (26 ref.)

Langue / Language

Anglais

Editeur / Publisher

American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, ETATS-UNIS  (1987) (Revue)

Mots-clés anglais / English Keywords

Nanoparticle ; Cosolvent ;

Mots-clés français / French Keywords

Procédé RESS ; Nanoparticule ; Cosolvant ;

Mots-clés espagnols / Spanish Keywords

Nanopartícula ; Cosolvente ;

Localisation / Location

INIST-CNRS, Cote INIST : 120 F, 35400013214425.0140