Preparation and characterization of vitexin powder micronized by a supercritical antisolvent (SAS) process

Yuangang Zu,  Qi Zhang, Xiuhua Zhao, Dan Wang, Wang Li, Xiaoyu Sui, Ying Zhang, Shougang Jiang, Qiuxue Wang, Chengbo Gu

Abstract

Vitexin is a flavonoid drug with poor water solubility commonly used to prevent heart diseases. The poor water solubility of vitexin limits its dissolution, which strongly impairs drug bioavailability. The aim of this work was to improve its bioavailability by reducing particle size in a supercritical antisolvent process (SAS) using supercritical carbon dioxide as an antisolvent agent and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent. In order to optimize the parameters of SAS process, the whole experiment was designed and conducted in an orthogonal array design (OAD), OA 16(45). The obtained optimum micronization conditions were as follows: precipitation pressure 25 MPa, precipitation temperature 50 °C, concentration of vitexin solution 2 mg/mL and vitexin solution flow rate at 6.7 mL/min. Under this condition, the mean particle size (MPS) of vitexin was reduced to 126 ± 18.5 nm.

Vitexin (99.7% pure) was purchased from Chengdu Biopurify Phytochemicals Ltd (Chengdu City, PR China)