 | Howard Forbes, Jr. University of the Virgin Islands BiologyMentor(s)Paul Takhistov, Ph.D. Department of Food Science Rutgers University |
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| The application of dielectrical relaxation spectroscopy to determine the water content of various acetaminophen powders | ||
| A powder is a dry, bulky solid composed of a large number of very fine particles that exhibit the properties of both a solid and a liquid. This makes it hard to characterize their behaviors under certain conditions. One of these conditions of interest is moisture absorption, which negatively impacts the physical and chemical stability of the powder. This is an important factor for drug manufacturers to consider because moisture absorption leads to the accelerated hydrolysis/decomposition of the drug. However, there is a lack of non-destructive methods that these companies can employ to measure the moisture content of their powdered formulated drugs during manufacturing or storage. Our objective was to thus determine if Dielectrical Relaxation Spectroscopy (DRS) could be used to evaluate the water content of various grades of acetaminophen. This study investigated the potential application of Dielectrical Relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) as a nondestructive method to measure the moisture absorption of three grades of acetaminophen. Acetaminophen samples were exposed to nine humidities ranging from 7-100% RH for approximately five hours. Relative permittivity was measured thereafter over a frequency range from 1 kHz to 9 MHz. Water content was shown to be dependent on particle size and humidity. As humidity increased, water activity increased. Micronized and Semi-Fine grades of acetaminophen were not as significantly influenced by moisture absorption as Powder grade. |