Crystallization of acetaminophen micro-particle using supercritical carbon dioxide

Fine particles of acetaminophen were produced by Aerosol Solvent Extraction System (ASES). The experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of various temperatures, pressures, solvents, solution concentrations and solution feed volume rates on particle size and morphology. The choice of solvent appears to be very important for getting specific particle shape and size. The result shows that when ethyl acetate is used as a solvent, the irregular and acicular morphology of raw material is recrystallized to be regular and monoclinic. The average particle size of recrystallized acetaminophen from ethyl acetate solution has been measured to be 3-4 urn, which was about 1/20th of raw acetaminophen in size. The particle size distribution range also became narrow from 82 μm to 4.9 μm.