An Empirical Analysis of the Solubility of Pharmaceuticals in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Using Sublimation Enthalpies

An empirical study of the solubility of pharmaceuticals in supercritical carbon dioxide has been performed by using a modified enhancement factor and a group contribution method. According to the results, polar solids with similar sublimation enthalpies, and at similar experimental conditions, show similar solubility in terms of the proposed modified enhancement factor. Several equations to estimate that modified enhancement factor (depending on the experimental conditions and the sublimation enthalpies) with a deviation less than 5% have been determined. These equations can be used as a tool to identify if experimental data follow the common solubility tendency. However, they cannot be used with other type of solids, such as inorganic compounds