In this work, the solubilities of pharmaceutical cocrystals in solvent/anti-solvent systems were predicted using PC-SAFT in order to increase the efficiency of cocrystal formation processes. Modeling results and experimental data were compared for the cocrystal system nicotinamide/succinic acid (2:1) in the solvent/anti-solvent mixtures ethanol/water, ethanol/acetonitrile and ethanol/ethyl acetate at 298.15 K and in the ethanol/ethyl acetate mixture also at 310.15 K. The solubility of the investigated cocrystal slightly increased when adding small amounts of anti-solvent to the solvent, but drastically decreased for high anti-solvent amounts. Furthermore, the solubilities of nicotinamide, succinic acid and the cocrystal in the considered solvent/anti-solvent mixtures showed strong deviations from ideal-solution behavior. However, by accounting for the thermodynamic non-ideality of the components, PC-SAFT is able to predict the solubilities in all above-mentioned solvent/anti-solvent systems in good agreement with the experimental data.
Keywords: cocrystal; crystal engineering; phase diagram; solubility; solvent mixtures; thermodynamics.