Experimental solubility of aripiprazole in supercritical carbon dioxide and modeling

Abstract

The solubility of compounds in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-${\mathrm{CO}}_2$) has found crucial significance in the fabrication of micro/nano-scaled drugs. In this research, the solubility of Aripiprazole was measured in SC-${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ at 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-${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ varied in the range of $1.830\times {10}^{-6}$ to $1.036\times {10}^{-5}$. The solubility highly depended on the operating pressure and temperature. The Chrastil (0.994), Jouyban et al. (0.993) and Sodeifian et al. (0.992) models showed the highest consistency with the obtained values. Furthermore, self-consistency tests were performed on the solubility of Aripiprazole in SC-${\mathrm{CO}}_2$. The approximate total enthalpy (${\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{total}}$), vaporization enthalpy (${\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{vap}}$), and solubility enthalpy (${\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{sol}}$) were also calculated.