Controlling the dissolution rate of hydrophobic drugs by incorporating carbon nanotubes with different levels of carboxylation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2019

Abstract

We present the anti-solvent precipitation of hydrophobic drugs griseofulvin (GF) and sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) in the presence of carboxylated carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs). The aqueous dispersed f-CNTs were directly incorporated into the drug particles during the precipitation process. f-CNTs with different levels of carboxylation were tested where the hydrophilicity was varied by altering the C:COOH ratio. The results show that the hydrophilic f-CNTs dramatically enhanced the dissolution rate for both drugs, and the enhancement corresponded to the hydrophilicity of f-CNTs. The time to reach 80% dissolution (t80) reduced from 52.5 min for pure SMZ to 16.5 min when incorporated f-CNTs that had a C:COOH ratio of 23.2 were used, and to 11.5 min when the ratio dropped to 16. A corresponding decrease was observed for SMZ for the above-mentioned f-CNTs. The study clearly demonstrates that it is possible to control the dissolution rate of hydrophobic drugs by altering the level of carboxylation of the incorporated CNTs.

Identifier

85064139164 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Applied Sciences Switzerland

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.3390/app9071475

e-ISSN

20763417

Issue

7

Volume

9

Grant

R01ES023209

Fund Ref

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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