Study of the polymorphic transformation kinetics of sulfamerazine under milling by high resolution diffraction

Ball milling is widely used in the pharmaceutical field as a simple and effective way to reduce the grain sizes of powders. However, milling is also able to induce transformations towards metastable polymorphic forms, which has generally a strong repercussions on the bioavailability of drugs, i.e. on their efficiency. The aim of this project is to determine the mechanisms driving these transformations which are still unknown. This should greatly improve the control of the physical state of the drugs during pharmaceutical processes and thus their therapeutic performances. For this, we will take advantage of the high-time, high-angular and spatial resolution of synchrotron beam to study in situ, and thus in real time, the kinetics of the polymorphic transformation of Sulfamerazine, a widely used sulfonamide antibacterial drug, upon milling.