Chemical Engineering February 2017 - 11

New excipient enhances drug solubility
A
newly launched pharmaceutical excipient (inactive ingredient
providing a vehicle for delivery of oral dosage) enhances the
solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that have
poor bioavailability. Tradenamed Parteck MXP, the excipient is
a polyvinyl alcohol-based material developed by MilliporeSigma (Billerica,
Mass.; www.emdmillipore.com).
Hot-melt extrusion (HME) is a pharmaceutical process intended to
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increase solubility and bioavailability of APIs when combining them
with excipients. " HME increases API solubility by breaking down the
crystalline structure of APIs into a more amorphous state, " explains
Andrew Bulpin head of process solutions strategic marketing and
innovation at MilliporeSigma. " The Parteck MXP excipient works to
'fix' this amorphous state into a solid solution form. " Increases in
solubility can potentially increase the overall bioavailability of the API,
Bulpin says.
Traditionally, excipients used in HME can have limitations in the
amount of API load, resulting in instability of the amorphous state,
and in some cases, are unstable themselves under the high temperatures
used in HME. The Parteck MXP excipient, due to its intrinsic
properties, can maintain stability (stable above 200°C, the company
says) and load more API by weight than with traditional excipients.
The company says Parteck MXP allows up to 30% drug load, compared
to 10-15% with existing excipients.
The polymer used in Parteck MXP is listed by the U.S. FDA as a
GRAS (generally recognized as safe) substance, according to MilliporeSigma.
It has been tested on eight common low-solubility drugs so far.
7.0 "
from industry and academia - to develop a process to use
the treated salt and purified wastewater in electrolysis processes
to produce chlorine.
" A key objective of this project is to increase the salt content
of the salt solutions as much as possible in an environmentally
friendly manner during the treatment process, " says
project coordinator Yuliya Schiesser, a process researcher at
Covestro. This will be done in part using the waste heat from
the adjacent production plants. Covestro is planning a demonstration
plant for testing purposes at its Krefeld-Uerdingen
site in Germany. In early 2016, the company brought a pilot
plant on stream there that uses a recycling process developed
in-house to purify salt-laden process wastewater so
that it can be reused for the production of chlorine.
PHOTOCATALYSTS
Efforts to develop artificial photosynthesis as a means for
making H2 have been hindered by the degredation of the
photocatalysts commonly used in anodes, which have a
lifetime of around 20 h. Now, researchers from Japan have
developed a water-splitting photocatalyst sheet with a selfregenerating
co-catalyst that enhances the durability of
oxygen-evolution to longer than 1,100 h. The achievement
is a milestone for a project of the New Energy and Industrial
Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki
City, Japan), with researchers from the University of Tokyo,
Tokyo University of Science and Japan Technological Research
Association of Artificial Photosynthetic Chemical
Process. The NEDO team showed that anodes made with
Mo-doped BiVO4 particles embedded into sheets possess
a stability that is comparable to that of solar cells.
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Chemical Engineering February 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering February 2017