Solubility of Aripiprazole in supercritical carbon dioxide: Experimental and modeling evaluations

Abstract

Abstract The solubility of compounds in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) has found crucial significance in the fabrication of micro/nano-scaled drugs. In this research, the solubility of Aripiprazole was measured in SC-CO2 in various temperatures (308-338 K) and pressures (12-30 MPa). Moreover, the experimental solubility results were correlated with several semi-empirical models (Chrastil, Bartle et al., Kumar & Johnston, Menden-Santiago & Teja, Sodeifian et al., and Jouyban et al.) as well as the modified Wilson model. The molar fraction of the drug in SC-CO2 varied the range of 1.83 × 10-6 to 1.036 × 10-5. The solubility highly depended on operating pressure and temperature. The Chrastil (0.9936) and Sodeifian et al. (0.9923), and Jouyban et al. (0.9916) models showed the highest consistency with the obtained values. Furthermore, self-consistency tests were performed on the solubility of Aripiprazole in SC-CO2. The approximate total enthalpy (ΔHtotal), vaporization enthalpy (ΔHvap), and solubility enthalpy (ΔHsol) were also calculated.