The stability of drugs in various solid dosage forms is an important issue, since solid dosage forms are the most common pharmaceutical formulation in clinical use. To determine the shelf life of a drug, accelerated stability testing has been performed under exaggerated conditions to examine the degradation process, to make shelf-life predictions and to calculate preliminary expiration dates. [1][2][3] The accelerated stability testing method is largely based on an empirical relationship of temperature to an observed chemical reaction-rate constant. Information about the room-temperature stability is then extrapolated from this accelerated data using the Arrhenius' law. [1][2][3] This test is generally performed under isothermal conditions, using parallel storage of samples at different temperatures.The decomposition reactions of solids include all the chemical transformations, which involve a redistribution of the bonding forces of a crystalline reactant. The bond redistribution process usually occurs at a reaction interface to transform the reactant solid into a product.4) The decomposition reaction-rate of a solid phase is usually assumed to be directly proportional to the area of the active interface and principally relates to the temperature dependency. Once a molecule decomposes at an activated site and changes in geometry, the neighboring molecules are more likely to degrade and cause a further decomposition reaction. In general, the decomposition reactions of solids are too complicated to show the molecular details of the solid-state reaction.5) Some solid-state decompositions of drugs have been analyzed in terms of zero-order and first-order kinetics, 6,7) and both the Prout-Tompkins and Avrami-Erofeev equations have also been found to be the best fit for the decomposition of aspartame, cytosine monohydrate or binaphthyl. 5,8,9) Although many methods of analysis have been used to study solid-state reactions and their kinetics, 10) the combined physical analytical technique of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy equipped with a thermal analyzer is more convenient than other methods.
11-14)The thermal-dependent characteristics of materials have been extensively studied using a thermal FT-IR microspectroscopic system, which is a simple, rapid and powerful tool for studying micro-samples.14) It not only determines the effect of temperature on the conformation of samples, but also acts as a method for accelerated stability testing to predict product stability and shelf life. This unique system has been used in our laboratory to investigate the correlation between the structural change of samples (such as drug, 15) skin, 16) silicon elastomer, 17) Eudragits and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) polymers, [18][19][20] a-crystallin and dipeptide sweetener 21,22) and thermal treatment. Our previous study showed that the pathway of the solid-state diketopiperazine (DKP) formation in aspartame and lisinopril via intramolecular cyclization by the nonisothermal FT-IR microspectroscopic system is almost simulta...