Drug loading of foldable commercial intraocular lenses using supercritical impregnation.

The drug delivery through intraocular lenses (IOLs) allows the combination of cataract surgery act and postoperative treatment in a single procedure. In order to prepare such systems, "clean" supercritical CO2 processes are studied for loading commercial IOLs with ophthalmic drugs. Ciprofloxacin (CIP, an antibiotic) and dexamethasone 21-phosphate disodium (DXP, an anti-inflammatory drug) were impregnated into foldable IOLs made from poly-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (P-HEMA). A first pre-treatment step was conducted in order to remove absorbed conditioning physiological solution. Supercritical impregnations were then performed by varying the experimental conditions. In order to obtain transparent IOLs and avoid the appearance of undesirable foaming, it was necessary to couple slow pressurization and depressurization phases during supercritical treatments. The impregnation yields were determined through drug release studies. For both drugs, release studies show deep and reproducible impregnation for different diopters. For the system P-HEMA/CIP, a series of impregnations was performed to delimit the experimental range at two pressures (80 and 200 bar) in the presence or absence of ethanol as a co-solvent for two diopters (+5.0 D and +21.0 D). Increase in pressure in the absence of a co-solvent resulted in improved CIP impregnation. The addition of ethanol (5 mol%) produced impregnation yields comparable to those obtained at 200 bar without co-solvent. A response surface methodology based on experimental designs was used to study the influence of operating conditions on impregnation of IOLs (+21.0 D) in the absence of co-solvent. Two input variables with 5 levels each were considered; the pressure (80-200 bar) and the impregnation duration (30-240 min). CIP impregnation yields ranging between 0.92 and 3.83 µg CIP/mg IOL were obtained from these experiments and response surface indicated the pressure as a key factor in the process. The DXP impregnation in P-HEMA was higher than CIP at all the tested conditions (8.50-14.53 µg DXP/mg IOL). Furthermore, unlike CIP, highest DXP impregnation yields were obtained in the presence of ethanol as a co-solvent (5 mol%). NMR spectroscopy was performed to confirm complete removal of ethanol in the co-solvent-treated IOLs.

Application of the IWA ADM1 model to simulate anaerobic co-digestion of organic waste with waste activated sludge in mesophilic condition.

Anaerobic digestion model no. 1 model of international water association was applied to a full scale anaerobic co-digestion process for the treatment of the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes along with activated sludge wastes originating from a municipal wastewater treatment plant. This operation was carried out in a digester of 2000 m(3) in volume. It is operates at an average hydraulic retention time of 26.9 days with an average organic loading rate of 1.01 kg TVS/m(3) day, at a temperature of 37 degrees C with an average gas production rate of 0.296 m(3)/m(3) day. The aim of the present study is to compare the results obtained from the simulation with the experimental values. The simulated results showed a good fit for pH, methane and carbon dioxide percentages, biogas volume, chemical oxygen demand, total volatile fatty acids, inorganic nitrogen and inorganic carbon.