Pretreatmenteffect on induction time and polymorphic outcome of tolbutamide crystallizationin 1-propanol

Sammanfattning: In this project, the effect of solution thermal and structural history on nucleation was investigated. Many researchers have shown that temperature and duration of pretreatment has an influence on induction time, polymorphic outcome and metastable zone width. Here, solution of tolbutamide in 1-propanol was first prepared with same conditions, to “standardize” and control the initial solution history. Next, pretreatment of varied duration and temperature was applied to introduce different solution history. Then, nucleation began in 9℃, and induction time and polymorphic outcome were measured. Two batches of 30 isolated nucleation experiments each, were done per set of conditions. The results showed an impact on induction time and polymorphic outcome. However, this change cannot be clearly correlated with the conditions of pretreatment. Furthermore, the deviation between series of experiments that were performed under the same set of conditions, showed that the parameters affecting induction time and polymorphism were not controlled sufficiently to reach a safe conclusion. Moreover, the effect of solution filtration right before nucleation was investigated. This filtration step decreased experimental induction time from 160 minutes to less than 5. It is possible that this filtration step removed the solution’s structural memory, which accelerated nucleation. However, the effect of evaporation on concentration for example, or other parameters was not investigated. Furthermore, the effect of using filtration with 0.1 and 0.2 μm filters was examined. It was found that using 0.1 filter results in decreased median induction time by a factor of 4. Finally, filtration before standardization resulted in a 1.5% increase in concentration compared to solution that was not filtered. Filtration with 0.1 μm filter before standardization decreased median induction time by a factor of 4, as compared to using a 0.2 μm filter.