Investigation of the crystallinity of sugar alcohols co-ground with polymeric excipients.

Particle size reducing methods demand high energy input, so during these procedures crystallinity change always can occur. These changes can be enhanced by additives, which are often used to improve the dissolution, the powder rheological properties or the processability of the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient), or to support the particle size reduction. Different materials act differently during these crystallinity changing methods: some materials are easy to amorphize, while some of them can be really resistant. In this work, two chemically equivalent sugar alcohols as model materials-β- d-mannitol as poor glass former and d-sorbitol as good glass former-were chosen to be co-ground with polymeric additives (PVP C30 and PEG 6000). During the 120 min milling process mannitol showed just minor change in crystallinity alone or with PEG. But milled with PVP some amorphization was found. Sorbitol suffered noteworthy changes in crystallinity: raw sorbitol lost its crystallinity during the milling, and also polymorphic transition was displayed. Same transition happened during the milling with PVP: the whole crystallinity of the sorbitol decreased, while the amount of gamma polymorph increased. During the co-grinding with PEG, the polymer prevented the amorphization of sorbitol and kept the well-ordered crystal structure of the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]