Abstract
The particle size of medicinal materials is an important physical property which affects the pharmaceutical behaviors such as dissolution, chemical stability, compressibility and bioavailability of solid dosage forms. The size reduction of raw pharmaceutical powder is needed to formulize insoluble drugs or slightly soluble drugs and to improve the pharmaceutical properties such as the solubility, the pharmaceutical mixing and the dispersion. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the grinding characteristics of ursodeoxycholic acid(UDCA) as a model of insoluble drugs. The effects of the grinding time and the amount of additive on particle size distribution of ground UDCA were investigated. Grinding of insoluble drug, UDCA and a series of dry co-grinding experiments of UDCA with sodium lauryl sulfate(SLS) as an additive were carried out using a planetary ball mill. It was measured that the median diameter and the particle size distribution of ground products with grinding UDCA and additive SLS by Mastersizer. As a result of co-grinding of UDCA and SLS, the particle size of co-grinding products was decreased more than single grinding one. However, it was observed that co-grinding products were reaggregated to larger particles after 120 min.