Determination of Melting Point of PEG 1500 in Supercritical CO2 by Capillary Method (CAT#: STEM-PPA-0050-YJL)

Introduction

The use of supercritical (SC) carbon dioxide to process various biodegradable/biocompatible polymers for pharmaceutical and medical applications has attracted a great interest in the last two decades. A number of SC-fluid based techniques where the SC-CO2 acts as solvent, antisolvent or plasticizer have been used to obtain drug delivery systems. The main drawback in using the SC-CO2 as a solvent is represented by the poor solubility of most pharmaceutical products in the dense gas. The CO2 is a non-polar molecule with low molecular weight, scarcely able to dissolve molecules with more or less pronounced polar characteristics (such as weak bases or acids), and hydrophilic polymers.
The knowledge of the phase behavior of CO2/polymer binary system is a necessary prerequisite, in order to properly design and develop a SC-CO2-based processes such as the production of drug loaded microparticles or monolithic matrices. In this respect, the solubility of the polymer in SC-CO2 and the study of the behavior of the polymer in the presence of CO2 (swelling, foaming, melting point, etc.) are the most important issues that should be addressed.