This paper treats the drug release process as a phase-field
problem
and a phase-field model capable of simulating the dynamics of multiple
moving fronts, transient drug fluxes, and fractional drug release
from swellable polymeric systems is proposed and validated experimentally.
The model can not only capture accurately the positions and movements
of the distinct fronts without tracking the locations of fronts explicitly
but also predict well the release profile to the completion of the
release process. The parametric study has shown that parameters including
water diffusion coefficient, drug saturation solubility, drug diffusion
coefficient, initial drug loading ratio, and initial porosity are
critical in regulating the drug release kinetics. It has been also
demonstrated that the model can be applied to the study of swellable
filaments and has wide applicability for different materials. Due
to explicit boundary position tracking being eliminated, the model
paves the way for practical use and can be extended for dealing with
geometrically complex drug delivery systems. It is a useful tool to
guide the design of new controlled delivery systems fabricated by
fused filament fabrication.
Fused deposition modelling (FDM) has shown its advantages in the field of personalized oral medicine due to its low cost, simplicity and flexible manufacturing for on- demand doses. However, most pharmaceutical-grade polymers that can be hot-melt extruded do not have the mechanical properties for high-quality FDM feedstock, and it is considered a barrier to further development of FDM pharmaceutical applications. In this paper, the impacts of Hot- Melt Extrusion (HME) process parameters on the mechanical properties of FDM filaments is explored for the brittle polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The results show that the feed rate greatly influences the mechanical properties of the filaments. Through the exploration of HME process parameters, the preparation method of FDM raw filaments has been further improved, and the application of brittle polymers in FDM pharmaceuticals has been broadened.
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