Exploring high-throughput synchrotron X-Ray powder diffraction for the structural analysis of pharmaceuticals

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Analytical Chemistry
• Pharmaceutical Sciences

Background:

• Synchrotron radiation provides superior properties like high brightness and coherence over conventional sources.
• Historically, synchrotron facilities faced challenges in accessibility and operational complexity, limiting routine use.
• Recent advancements in technology transfer and high-throughput systems are improving synchrotron accessibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the practical applications of synchrotron X-Ray Powder Diffraction (s-XRPD) in pharmaceutical analysis.
• To demonstrate the potential of high-throughput s-XRPD systems in revolutionizing pharmaceutical analysis.
• To assess the quality and comparability of s-XRPD data with laboratory-based XRPD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized high-throughput synchrotron X-Ray Powder Diffraction (s-XRPD) systems.
• Analyzed pharmaceutical active ingredients (API) and excipients.
• Performed structural refinements and compared unit cell parameters with literature data.

Main Results:

• High-throughput s-XRPD systems generated XRPD patterns of comparable or superior quality to laboratory XRPD in under 5 seconds.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of high-throughput analysis for well-established pharmaceutical compounds.
• Confirmed data quality through structural refinements aligning with existing literature.

Conclusions:

• High-throughput s-XRPD has the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical analysis by offering rapid, high-quality data.
• Synchrotron data quality does not always need to be state-of-the-art to compete with lab-XRPD.
• User-friendliness, reproducibility, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness are key for synchrotron instrumentation to be competitive.