Improvement of econazole nitrate solubility by using surfactants and phospholipids according to optimized experimental design

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to improve and boost the solubility of Econazole Nitrate in water using phospholipid and surfactants, until it becomes possible to evaluate the utility of a mixture design in order to determine the optimal composition of non-ionic surfactants and phospholipids needed to obtain a significant improvement in the solubility of Econazole Nitrate in water. The design of experiments approach was tested using a mixture design of Lipoïd 75® as phospholipid and Econazole Nitrate, Tween® 80 and Solutol®HS 15 as surfactants,. Solubility was determined by the analysis of samples absorbance at 225 nm. and the measurement size of particles conducted using a Dynamic Light Scattering at the maximum point of solubility. The final results displayed an improvement in solubility with a statistically significant increase in many tested mixtures. Analysis of the design space showed that, the solubility of Econazole Nitrate is importantly affected by the concentration of surfactants. The best obtained test encloses 1% Econazole Nitrate, 2% Tween® 80, 0.5% Lipoid 75®, 2% Solutol®HS 15 and water q. s. for 100% w / w. Our study has demonstrated that optimized experimental design determines the proportions and the effects of every component based on a limited number of experiments.