Solubility Enhancement of Ibuprofen in the Presence of Hydrophilic Polymer and Surfactant

Solid dispersions of ibuprofen (IBU) were prepared by solvent evaporation method using polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and/or sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS). Physicochemical properties of the various solid dispersion systems were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The results from dissolution studies indicated that ternary solid dispersion systems were more efficacious than the corresponding binary ones. The increase in the dissolution rate of ibuprofen from its solid dispersions with the PVP and/or SLS used in this study could be attributed to several factors such as improved wettability, local solubilisation, and drug particle size reduction. The most effective solid dispersion was the 20:180:10 w/w IBUPVP-SLS ternary system, which allowed dissolution of 85 % drug after only 9.15 minutes (in comparison with 94.61 minutes for drug alone and 17.92 minutes for the binary system).