Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is a good candidate to substitute organic solvents in the production of pharmaceutical devices thanks to its low toxicity and its tunable solvent power, which can be easily modified through small variations in temperature and pressure. For this reasons scCO2 may be used for the modification of carriers with active principle ingredients to obtain pharmaceutical devices for controlled drug release. The set-up of the supercritical processes requires the knowledge of the thermodynamic properties of the involved phases. Therefore, both experimental data at supercritical conditions and appropriate thermodynamic models for the estimation of these properties are needed.
The objectives of the research activities are: i) the knowledge of the thermodynamic properties, mainly solubility, in supercritical fluids to provide data useful to design the supercritical processes as well as developing thermodynamic models to predict the properties of the supercritical fluids and phase equilibria of high-pressure systems; ii) the development of innovative supercritical processes for drug loading; iii) the optimization of aerogels obtained by supercritical drying with semi-continuous equipment (120 °C and 689 bar / 10000 psi) for biomedical applications.