CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Crystal polymorphism of active ingredients is relevant to the pharmaceutical industry, since polymorphic changes taking place during manufacture or storage of pharmaceutical formulations can affect critical properties of the products. Cimetidine (CIM) has several relevant solid state forms, including four polymorphs (A, B, C and D), an amorphous form (AM) and a monohydrate (M1). Dehydration of M1 has been reported to yield mixtures of A, B and C or just a single form. Standards of the solid forms of CIM were prepared and unequivocally characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, digital microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Multivariate curve resolution with alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) was coupled to variable temperature attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) to dynamically characterize the behavior of form M1 of CIM over a temperature range from ambient to 160 ºC, without sample pretreatment. MCR-ALS analysis of ATR-FTIR spectra obtained from the tested solid under variable temperature conditions unveiled the pure spectra of the species involved in the polymorphic transitions. This allowed the simultaneous observation of thermochemical and thermophysical events associated to the changes involved in the solid forms, enabling their unequivocal identification and improving the understanding of their thermal behavior. It was demonstrated that under the experimental conditions, dehydration of M1 initially results in the formation of polymorph B; after melting and upon cooling, the latter yields an amorphous solid (AM). It was concluded that the ATR-FTIR/MCR association is a promising and useful technique for monitoring solid-state phase transformations.