Nanostructured products of the drug theophylline caused by charge transfer interactions and a binary solvent system: Morphology and nanometry

Abstract

The chemistry of the charge transfer (CT) or proton transfer (PT) interactions of drugs has received considerable attention in the chemistry, biology, pharmacology and medicine. The current study focused on the drug theophylline (TP) at the nanoscale. CT or PT nanoparticles of the drug TP with various organic acceptors were obtained by the slow evaporation of methanol–dichloromethane (1:1) as the binary solvent system. The structure and morphology of the nanoparticles were characterized by physicochemical and spectroscopic techniques, such as UV–visible, IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopies; XRD; SEM; TEM; and elemental and thermal analyses. Notably, it has been found that the complexation of TP with an organic acceptor leads to highly organized nanoparticles with a main diameter in the range of 6–13nm.