Modelling the solubility of solids in supercritical fluids with density as the independent variable

A NEW SIMPLE CORRELATION FOR CALCULATING SOLUBILITY OF DRUGS IN SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE

During the past 20 years, supercritical fluid (SCF) based technologies have been gaining an increasing attention through the academic and industrial communities due to its advantages. One of the most important parameter for any supercritical-based technologies is the knowledge of the solute solubility at different pressures and temperatures. But, due to several concerns e.g. time and expense, measuring the solubility of all compounds in wide ranges of temperature and pressure is not possible. Respect to this, a new empirical correlation with four fitting parameters has been proposed to correlate the solubility of pharmaceuticals in different temperatures and pressures. The obtained results compared with four widely used density based correlations including Mendez-Santiago and Teja (MST), Bartle et al., Chrastil, Kumar and Johnston (KJ) revealed rather good capability of the proposed simple correlation for predicting the solubility of solutes in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC- CO 2). At last, the obtained results compared with the results of three Equations of State (EoS's) with three different mixing rules.

The effects of supercritical carbon dioxide processing on progesterone dispersion systems: a multivariate study

The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO(2)) processing on the release profiles of progesterone (PGN) and Gelucire 44/14 dispersion systems. A fractional factorial design was conducted for optimization of the particles from gas-saturated suspension (PGSS) method and formulation parameters and evaluating the effects of three independent responses: PGSS process yield, in vitro dissolution extent after 20 min (E(20)) and t (1/2) for prepared PGN dispersion systems. The experimental domain included seven factors measured at two levels to determine which factors represent the greatest amount of variation, hence the most influence on the resulting PGN dispersion systems. Variables tested were temperature (A) and pressure (B) of the supercritical fluid, sample loading (C), SC-CO(2) processing time (D), sonication (E), drug-to-excipient ratio (F) and orifice diameter into the expansion chamber (G). The analysis of variance showed that the factors tested had significant effects on the responses (p value <0.05). It was found that the optimum values of the PGSS process are higher pressure (186 bar), higher temperature (60°C), a longer processing time (30 min) and lower PGN-to-excipient ratio of 1:10. The corresponding processing yield was 94.7%, extent of PGN dissolution after 20 min was 85.6% and the t (1/2) was 17.7 min. The results suggest that Gelucire 44/14-based dispersion systems might represent a promising formulation for delivery of PGN. The preparation of PGN-loaded Gelucire 44/14 dispersion systems from a PGSS method can be optimized by factorial design experimentation.

Effect of the ligand shell composition on the dispersibility and transport of gold nanocrystals in near-critical solvents

The development of more efficient and environmentally benign methods for the synthesis and manipulation of nanomaterials has been a major focus of research among the scientific community. Supercritical (ScFs) and near-critical fluids (NcFs) offer numerous advantages over conventional solvents for these purposes. Among them, ScFs and NcFs offer dramatic reductions in the volume of organic waste typically generated during advanced material processes with the feasibility of changing a number of physicochemical properties by discrete variations in solvent pressure or temperature. In this work, we study the dispersibility of gold nanocrystals with a 3.7 nm core size stabilized by different ligand shells in NcF ethane and propane over a wide range of densities by fine-tuning the pressure of these fluids. Dispersibility vs density plots are obtained by following the variation in the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption spectra of the nanoparticles. To understand the results obtained in this study, three models are briefly discussed: the total interaction theory, the sedimentation coefficient equation, and the Chrastil method. The dispersibility and behavior of the nanocrystals with variations in fluid density are strongly dependent on the surface chemistry of the nanocrystal and the solvent employed. A correlation between measured dispersibility values and calculated sedimentation coefficients was observed in both compressed solvents. In addition, we successfully applied the Chrastil equation to predict and describe the dispersibility of gold nanocrystals with different shells as a function of density, determining that the reason for the high stabilities of some of the nanocrystal dispersions is the strong solvent-nanocrystal interactions. While NcF propane showed higher nanocrystal dispersibilities, using NcF ethane led to improved tunability of nanoparticle dispersions formed in the pressure range studied. Therefore, with a judicious selection of the fluid, NcFs seem to offer a remarkable advantage over conventional solvents for manipulation of nanomaterials, which could be applied to transport, purification, and separation of nanocrystals.

Advancements toward the greener processing of engineered nanomaterials--effect of core size on the dispersibility and transport of gold nanocrystals in near-critical solvents

The ability to process and purify engineered nanomaterials using near critical or supercritical fluids (NcFs or ScFs) has enormous potential for the application at various stages of the development of green nanomaterials. The dispersibility of octanethiol-stabilized gold nanocrystals of different core sizes is explored, which were chosen to serve as model nanomaterials of general interest in compressed ethane and propane over a wide range of fluid conditions. Both solvents have enormous potential for the environmentally benign processing and transport of engineered nanomaterials due to their nominal toxicity and high degree of tunability and processability that can essentially eliminate solvent waste. The dispersibility is determined by measuring the absorption spectra of dispersions of various sizes of nanocrystals in NcFs. To better understand the obtained results three models, the total interaction theory, the sedimentation coefficient equation, and the Chrastil method, are discussed. Nanoparticle dispersibility versus density plots are strongly dependent on nanoparticle size and solvent conditions, with the dispersion of larger nanocrystals more dependent on changes of pressure or density at a given temperature. For the range of nanoparticle sizes studied, compressed ethane at 25 degrees C leads to a greater tunability of nanoparticle dispersion when compared with compressed propane at 65 degrees C. For equivalent pressures, compressed propane is found to provide better solubility than ethane due to its higher density. The results quantitatively demonstrate that NcFs can offer pressure-tunable, size-selective control of nanoparticle solvation and transport at easily obtainable temperature and pressure conditions. These capabilities provide clear advantages over conventional solvents and direct application to various nanomaterials processes, such as synthesis, separation, transport, and purification of nanocrystals.

Determination of thermodynamic properties by supercritical fluid chromatography

This survey attempts to summarise thermodynamic applications of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) with an emphasis on the results published during the last 10 years. In addition to a review of thermodynamic measurements by SFC, it contains brief sections on instrumental considerations and on the sources of auxiliary information needed when processing the retention data.

Solubility prediction in supercritical CO(2) using minimum number of experiments

The correlation ability and solubility prediction in supercritical carbon dioxide of a proposed equation were studied. The work involved the solubilities of nicotinic acid and p-acetoxyacetanilide in supercritical carbon dioxide using a dynamic flow solubility system at 35-75 degrees C and 100-200 bar. The generated experimental solubility data together with 21 data sets collected from the literature were used to evaluate the correlation ability of available empirical equations. The average absolute relative deviations (AARD) for the empirical equations are 12.6-24.8%. The prediction capability of the modified empirical relationship was studied with six experimental data points as a training set. Then, solubility at other temperatures and pressures were predicted. The AARD between predicted solubilities and observed values is 17%.