Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences

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OPTIMIZATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL PARAMETERS BY ACOUSTIC CAVITATION TO ACHIEVE PARTICLE SIZE REDUCTION

CSILLA BARTOS, PIROSKA SZABÓ-RÉVÉSZ, RITA AMBRUS*

Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, University of Szeged, Eötvös u. 6, H-6725 Szeged, Hungary

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This article reports on particle engineering by a top-down method involving the organic solvent-free acoustic cavitation of ibuprofen (IBU). The process parameters (temperature, amplitude, sonication period and stabilizers) were optimized. The particle size distribution of IBU was measured after sonication and compared with the raw IBU (D 0.5=153 μm). Due to acoustic cavitation, the particle size decreased (D 0.5=25 μm), but the use of a stabilizer was needed for further decrease (D 0.5=11 μm). Samples sonicated with optimized process parameters, containing the most efficient stabilizer, were dried, their morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and the structure was determined by differential scanning calorimetery and X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD). During the thermoanalytical and XRPD characterization, the crystalline structure of IBU was detected after the sonication procedure.