화학공학소재연구정보센터
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.51, No.1, 464-473, 2012
Solubility Prediction of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Compounds in Pure and Mixed Solvents Using Predictive Models
Thermodynamic models offer a fast, reliable, and cost-effective method to select the best solvent or solvent mixtures for crystallization of solid components. To optimize the performance of the unit operations which produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the physical properties of the solute and solvent must be known. Solubility prediction is very crucial in the fine and specialty chemical industries, as the total cost of production is high in most cases. In this study, the solubility of three chemical compounds, 3-pentadecylphenol, lovastatin, and valsartan, in different solvents and solvent mixtures were studied experimentally and theoretically. The thermodynamic models of the UNIFAC and the NRTL-SAC model were used for prediction. The results of the prediction from the two models and their average relative deviation for the three model compounds showed a better performance for the NRTL-SAC model compared to the UNIFAC. For the case of lovastatin and valsartan, the NRTL-SAC model gives the average relative deviation of 0.2401 and 0.3843, respectively. Because of the flexibility of the NRTL-SAC program code that is written for the phase behavior prediction, it can be used for further analysis and optimization of the performance of crystallization processes (i.e., solvent screening and yield of the process). This study shows that the NRTL-SAC model can be used effectively in pharmaceutical industry, especially for solvent screening purposes.