2002 Volume 50 Issue 2 Pages 263-267
A novel method for thermodynamic stability studies of polymorphic drug substances has been developed. In order to estimate the transition temperature for an enantiotropic polymorphic pair, a formula for calculating the temperature at which the solubilities of each polymorph become equal has been derived with heat of solution and solubility as the variables. This formula is based on the assumption that van't Hoff plots (logarithmic solubility versus reciprocal of absolute temperature plots) of each polymorph show a straight line (heat of solution is independent of temperature) whose slope can be expressed as a function of heat of solution. The transition temperatures for seratrodast, acetazolamide and carbamazepine polymorphic pairs calculated by the formula were in good agreement with the results of previous studies. Furthermore, the calculated transition temperature for the indomethacin polymorphic pair was above the melting point, an unrealistic temperature range, suggesting that these polymorphs are monotropically related. Since this formula requires solubility data at only one arbitrary temperature other than heat of solution data for both polymorphs in a polymorphic pair, the proposed method is much faster than the conventional method requiring solubility data at five or more different temperatures for the preparation of van't Hoff plots.
