In this work, the polymorphic transformation of a dimorphic
model
compound, ortho-aminobenzoic acid (OABA), is investigated
using experimental characterization in combination with population
balance modeling. A novel experimental design is proposed to estimate
the crystallization kinetic parameters of the polymorphic system in
a combined cooling and antisolvent crystallization (CCAC) process
with a minimum number of experiments, which can reduce the resources
and time required to obtain kinetic information, which is of great
importance in the drug substance development stage. The modeling studies
revealed that the growth rates of the two polymorphs depend on the
solvent composition. At a particular temperature and supersaturation,
the form I growth rate increased as the solvent content proportion
increased, whereas the form II growth rate decreased as the solvent
content increased. The identified kinetic parameters of the nucleation
and growth rate expressions of the two polymorphs were validated for
different solvent compositions and temperatures. The validated model
was then used to perform in silico design of experiments to develop
a design space that can be used to identify operating conditions to
achieve the desired crystal size and polymorphic form.