Aerosol heterodisperse

It must also be emphasized that the major mass of a heterodispersed aerosol may be contained in a few relatively large particles, since the mass of a particle is proportional to the cube of its diameter. Therefore, the particle-size distribution and the concentration of the drug particles in the exposure atmosphere should be sampled using a cascade impactor or membrane filter sampling technique, monitored using an optical or laser particle-size analyzer, and analyzed using optical or electron microscopy techniques. 

A monodisperse aerosol is one with a narrow size distribution, which, for log-normal-distributed particles, usually means a geometric standard deviation of about 1.2 or smaller. Monodisperse particles are expected to have simple shapes and uniform composition with respect to size. A polydisperse aerosol, on the other hand, is one containing a wide range of particle sizes, but which may otherwise be homogeneous in terms of the basic physical and chemical properties that are not related to size. The term heterodisperse is also used occasionally this describes aerosols varying widely in physical and chemical characteristics, as well as size. 

The geometric standard deviation (GSD) is defined as the size ratio at 84.2% on the cumulative frequency curve to the median diameter. This assumes that the distribution of particle sizes is lognormal. A monodisperse, i.e. ideal aerosol, has a GSD of 1, although in practice an aerosol with a GSD of <1.22 is described as monodisperse while those aerosols with a GSD >1.22 are referred to as poly dispersed or heterodispersed. 

The use of surfactants to modify the surface tension of an aerosol and alter its droplet size distribution has shown that their influence depends strongly on the characteristics of the solution to be aerosoled. The span, defined as 90% undersize —10% undersize/50% undersize, gives a measure of the width of the volume distribution relative to the median diameter of the droplets formed in the aerosoling process. Comparative studies performed with commercial air-jet and US nebulizers have shown that, under similar working conditions, the latter provide less heterodispersed aerosols, with span values ranging from 1.50 to 1.75, which are similar for aqueous drug solutions in the presence and absence of surfactants [156]. 

Persons DD, Hess GD, Muller WJ, Scherer PW. Airway deposition of hygroscopic heterodispersed aerosols results of a computer calculation. J Appl Physiol 1987 63 1195-1204. 

Currently, suspensions prepared from micronised active substances are the only marketed dehvery system for nebulisation of poorly water soluble substances such as steroids and cyclosporine [53]. Several problems are inherent in nebulising micro-suspensions and they vary from non-optimised lung deposition for the active substance to heterodispersity of the active substance concentration in the aerosol droplets and poor compatibility with different types of nebulisers, particularly ultrasonic devices. Suspensions may also have poor stability and the two components (solid and liquid) tend to separate with time within the formulation by sedimentation or flocculation, depending on the particle density relative to that of the liquid. Several jet nebulisers can deliver suspensions quite effectively, even independently of the primary particle size [54], but ultrasonic devices may convert primarily the continuous phase into aerosol whereas vibrating mesh inhalers can be blocked by particles being larger than the pore diameter of the membrane. 

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