Solubility Determination, Hansen Solubility Parameters and Thermodynamic Evaluation of Thymoquinone in (Isopropanol + Water) Compositions.

This article studies the solubility, Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs), and thermodynamic behavior of a naturally-derived bioactive thymoquinone (TQ) in different binary combinations of isopropanol (IPA) and water (H2O). The mole fraction solubilities (x3) of TQ in various (IPA + H2O) compositions are measured at 298.2-318.2 K and 0.1 MPa. The HSPs of TQ, neat IPA, neat H2O, and binary (IPA + H2O) compositions free of TQ are also determined. The x3 data of TQ are regressed by van't Hoff, Apelblat, Yalkowsky-Roseman, Buchowski-Ksiazczak λh, Jouyban-Acree, and Jouyban-Acree-van't Hoff models. The maximum and minimum x3 values of TQ are recorded in neat IPA (7.63 × 10-2 at 318.2 K) and neat H2O (8.25 × 10-5 at 298.2 K), respectively. The solubility of TQ is recorded as increasing with the rise in temperature and IPA mass fraction in all (IPA + H2O) mixtures, including pure IPA and pure H2O. The HSP of TQ is similar to that of pure IPA, suggesting the great potential of IPA in TQ solubilization. The maximum molecular solute-solvent interactions are found in TQ-IPA compared to TQ-H2O. A thermodynamic study indicates an endothermic and entropy-driven dissolution of TQ in all (IPA + H2O) mixtures, including pure IPA and pure H2O.

Solubility-physicochemical-thermodynamic theory of penetration enhancer mechanism of action.

The hypothesis for the investigation was that the overall mechanism of action of skin penetration enhancers is best explained by the Solubility-Physicochemical-Thermodynamic (SPT) theory. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the application of SPT theory in transdermal/topical/enhancer research. The SPT theory puts forward the concept that the mode of action of enhancers is related to solubility parameters, physicochemical interactions and thermodynamic activity. This paper discusses these concepts by using experimentally derived permeation data, various physicochemical and solubility parameters (ingredient active gap (IAG), ingredient skin gap (ISG), solubility of active in the formulation (SolV) and the formulation solubility in the skin (SolS)) generated by using FFE (Formulating for Efficacy™ - ACT Solutions Corp) software. These studies suggest that there is an inverse relationship between measured flux and IAG values given that there is an optimum ingredient skin gap, SolV and SolS ratio. The study demonstrated that the flux is actually proportional to a gradient of thermodynamic activity rather than the concentration and maximum skin penetration and deposition can be achieved when the drug is at its highest thermodynamic activity.

Efficient and accurate local single reference correlation methods for high-spin open-shell molecules using pair natural orbitals.

A production level implementation of the high-spin open-shell (spin unrestricted) single reference coupled pair, quadratic configuration interaction and coupled cluster methods with up to doubly excited determinants in the framework of the local pair natural orbital (LPNO) concept is reported. This work is an extension of the closed-shell LPNO methods developed earlier [F. Neese, F. Wennmohs, and A. Hansen, J. Chem. Phys. 130, 114108 (2009); F. Neese, A. Hansen, and D. G. Liakos, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 064103 (2009)]. The internal space is spanned by localized orbitals, while the external space for each electron pair is represented by a truncated PNO expansion. The laborious integral transformation associated with the large number of PNOs becomes feasible through the extensive use of density fitting (resolution of the identity (RI)) techniques. Technical complications arising for the open-shell case and the use of quasi-restricted orbitals for the construction of the reference determinant are discussed in detail. As in the closed-shell case, only three cutoff parameters control the average number of PNOs per electron pair, the size of the significant pair list, and the number of contributing auxiliary basis functions per PNO. The chosen threshold default values ensure robustness and the results of the parent canonical methods are reproduced to high accuracy. Comprehensive numerical tests on absolute and relative energies as well as timings consistently show that the outstanding performance of the LPNO methods carries over to the open-shell case with minor modifications. Finally, hyperfine couplings calculated with the variational LPNO-CEPA∕1 method, for which a well-defined expectation value type density exists, indicate the great potential of the LPNO approach for the efficient calculation of molecular properties.