Antisolvent precipitation technique: a very promising approach to crystallize curcumin in presence of polyvinyl pyrrolidon for solubility and dissolution enhancement

Curcumin with a vast number of pharmacological activities is a poorly water soluble drug which its oral bioavailability is profoundly limited by its dissolution or solubility in GI tract. Curcumin could be a good anticancer drug if its solubility could be increased. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to increase the dissolution rate of curcumin by employing antisolvent crystallization technique and to investigate the effect of polyvinyl pyrrolidone K30 (PVP) as colloidal particles in crystallization medium on resultant particles. Curcumin was crystalized in the presence of different amounts of PVP by antisolvent crystallization method and their physical mixtures were prepared for comparison purposes. The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The solubility and dissolution of the treated and untreated curcumin were also determined. Antisolvent crystallization of curcumin led to the formation of particles with no definite geometric shape. It was interesting to note that the DSC and XRPD studies indicated the formation of a new polymorph and less crystallinity for particles crystallized in the absence of PVP. However, the crystallized curcumin in the presence of PVP was completely amorphous. All crystalized curcumin samples showed much higher dissolution rate compared to untreated curcumin. The amount of curcumin dissolved within 10 for treated curcumin in the presence of PVP (1:1 curcumin:PVP) was 7 times higher than untreated curcumin and this enhancement in the dissolution for curcumin samples crystallized in the absence of PVP was around 5 times. Overall‚ the results of this study showed that antisolvent crystallization method in the absence or presence of small amounts of PVP is very efficient in increasing the dissolution rate of curcumin to achieve better efficiency for curcumin.