Wettability of Paracetamol Polymorphic Forms I and II

Abstract

It is well known that different forms of solid-state polymorphic materials exhibit diverse physicochemical properties. The variations in the wetting and surface energetics of a pair of organic polymorphic solids are reported in detail here for the first time. The growth of macroscopic single crystals (facet area >1 cm(2)) of paracetamol has enabled for the first time the direct measurement of advancing contact angles, theta(A) for water and diiodomethane on a range of specific facets for two polymorphs; forms I and II. Not only was the wetting behavior found to be anisotropic, as has been recently reported, but the differing polymorphic forms exhibited significant variations in their wetting behavior for the same Miller indexed faces. The (001), (010), and (110) faces were studied, and the observed wettability data differed confirming the independence of facet wettability and Miller indices for both polymorphs. theta(A) was found to be very sensitive to the local surface chemistry for each facet examined, which in turn is a direct consequence of the molecular packing and structure within the crystal lattice. On the basis of the theta(A) value of water, the hydrophilicity rankings for the facet surfaces of form II examined is: (010) approximately (110) > (001). This experimental study highlights complex surface chemistry of polymorphic solids in which anisotropic surface energies were observed for both forms of paracetamol, strongly suggesting that such anisotropic wetting behavior is the norm for organic crystalline solids. Furthermore, the same Miller indexed facets for forms I and II exhibited very different surface chemical behavior, such that it was not possible to infer understanding about one form based upon knowledge of another form.