A comparative study of femtosecond pulsed laser ablation of meloxicam in distilled water and in air

The increasing prevalence of water insoluble or poorly soluble drugs calls for the development of new formulation methods. Common approaches include the reduction of particle size and degree of crystallinity. Pulsed laser ablation is a chemical-free technique for producing sub-micrometre sized drug particles and has the potential to induce amorphization. We studied the effect of femtosecond pulsed laser ablation (ELI ALPS THz pump laser system: λ c  = 781 nm, τ = 135 fs) on meloxicam in distilled water and in air. The ablated particles were characterized chemically, morphologically, in terms of size, crystallinity and thermal behaviour. Furthermore, we analyzed changes in the solubility as compared to the original material. We demonstrated that femtosecond laser ablation in both distilled water and air can be an effective particle size reduction technique, resulting in an increased saturation concentration of the drug. The mostly sub-micrometre sized particles showed signs of melting and decreased crystallinity. In case of femtosecond pulsed laser ablation in air meloxicam spheres were produced without the use of excipients. We aimed to describe the abalation processes in both unvestigated media.