Evaluation of emulsification behavior of two dual centrifuge types aided by CFD simulation

Hellmund, Nico; Inguva, Venkatesh; Steiner, Denise

Abstract

Over the last two decades, dual centrifugation has proven to be a reliable technology for the preparation of lipid nanocarriers. Although it has been shown that the preparation of various lipid-based nanocarriers like liposomes, lipid nanosuspensions and nanoemulsions is possible using this technology, the influence of the two different types of dual centrifuges on the resulting formulations is still unclear. This study therefore focuses on the preparation of lipid nanoemulsions by phase inversion emulsification using the dual (symmetric) centrifuge and the dual asymmetric centrifuge. In order to achieve a correlation between the two dual centrifuges, which differ in their design, CFD simulations were used to determine the force densities during processing. The resulting droplet sizes showed good comparability between the two dual centrifuges when similar force densities prevailed in both centrifuges during emulsification. Even when formulation and process parameters were changed or when scaling the process from 1 g to 10 g formulation, no significant differences in droplet sizes were observed.