The phase transformation assessment of Ibuprofen-Citric Acid cocrystal in propanol and ethanol solution

The objectives of this research are to determine the phase transformation assessment of Ibuprofen-Citric Acid co-crystal in ethanol and propanol solution and to analyze the formation of ibuprofen-citric acid co-crystal using analytical equipment such as PXRD, DSC, FTIR and optical microscope. The stability and bioavailability of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) are important for the product performance. However, a few drugs available in the market have low solubility and dissolution rate problem. Nowadays, pharmaceutical co-crystal has received great attention for the development of the drug as it can alter the physicochemical properties of API to increase the efficiency of a dosage form and the overall stability. Co-crystallization helps to increase the solubility of the active pharmaceutical ingredients. In this study, Ibuprofen will be selected as material of interest as it has low solubility. The method used in this study was slow-cooling method. In this study, the crystal formed has no pattern in term of ratio. The crystal formed showed plate-like shape whenever tested using the optical microscope. No new functional group formed in the crystals as compared to the pure components whenever analysed using the FTIR. The result of differential scanning calorimetry shows that all of the crystals formed are mixture instead of co-crystal. From this result, we can conclude that slow-cooling method is not suitable for co-crystallization of ibuprofen-citric acid.