Quantitative determination of polymorphic composition in intact compacts by parallel-beam X-ray powder diffractometry

This paper details the development of a method using parallel-beam X-ray powder diffractometry as a novel means of determining polymorphic composition in intact compacts. Two polymorphic systems, chlorpropamide and glycine, were selected. The polymorphic components were weighed, mixed, and compressed using a Carver press with 3/8-in. concave tooling. The compacts were then analyzed using parallel-beam X-ray powder diffractometry in transmission geometry. The data were processed using the profile-fitting module in the Shimadzu XRD-6000 software V 4.1 (for NT 4.0/98). The integrated intensity ratio of a selected peak for each crystal form was used for quantitation of each polymorph. Excellent linear correlation was observed for both polymorphic systems. The convex shape of the compact surface had no effect on the XRD patterns. Since parallel-beam X-ray diffractometry is not sensitive to the shape of the sample surface, it provides a simple method for quantifying polymorphs in intact compacts. Further work to extend this to formulated tablets is ongoing. The relatively larger variation in one of the peaks in the chlorpropamide study was found to be consistent with the computational analysis of the slip behavior of the stable polymorph. This method provides the first reported non-invasive X-ray diffraction pattern quantitation of crystal forms in intact compacts.