Measurement and correlation of antifungal drugs solubility in pure supercritical CO2 using semiempirical models

In the present study the solubilities of two antifungal drugs of ketoconazole and clotrimazole in supercritical carbon dioxide were measured using a simple static method. The experimental data were measured at (308 to 348) K, over the pressure range of (12.2 to 35.5) MPa. The mole fraction solubilities ranged from 0.2 · 10−6 to 17.45 · 10−5. In this study five density based models were used to calculate the solubility of drugs in supercritical carbon dioxide. The density based models are Chrastil, modified Chrastil, Bartle, modified Bartle and Mendez-Santiago and Teja (M–T). Interaction parameters for the studied models were obtained and the percentage of average absolute relative deviation (AARD%) in each calculation was displayed. The correlation results showed good agreement with the experimental data. A comparison among the five models revealed that the Bartle and its modified models gave much better correlations of the solubility data with an average absolute relative deviation (AARD%) ranging from 4.8% to 6.2% and from 4.5% to 6.3% for ketoconazole and clotrimazole, respectively. Using the correlation results, the heat of drug–CO2 solvation and that of drug vaporization was separately approximated in the range of (−22.1 to −26.4 and 88.3 to 125.9) kJ · mol−1.

► Ketoconazole (KZ) and clotrimazole (CZ) are two antifungal drugs.
► The solubilities of KZ and CZ were measured in supercritical CO2.
► The experimental results were correlated using five density based models.
► The heats’ of drug-CO2 solvation and drug vaporization were estimated.