Supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂) impregnation emerged as a suitable technique to load thermosensitive drugs in polymeric devices thanks to mild process temperatures, the absence of toxic solvents and the easy removal of residual solvent through depressurization. This technique has been successfully tested at lab scale but few attempts to scale-up the process are reported. This work aims at filling this gap by performing a scCO₂ impregnation at pilot scale of bioresorbable suture threads with ketoprofen. The process led to low drug loading values (0.2 – 0.8%) and to a very fast eluting rate, suggesting that they can be suitable when an immediate burst release is needed. Experiments were complemented by a multiscale mathematical modeling to better rationalize the outcomes. This work constitutes a proof of concept for a possible strategy to perform the scale-up of scCO2-assisted drug loading and highlighted some aspects to be addressed for future developments.

超临界CO ₂ (scCO ₂ ) 浸渍由于温和的工艺温度、不存在有毒溶剂且易于通过减压去除残留溶剂而成为在聚合物装置中加载热敏药物的合适技术。该技术已在实验室规模进行了成功测试，但几乎没有报道扩大该过程的尝试。这项工作旨在通过用酮洛芬对生物可吸收缝合线进行中试规模的scCO _{2浸渍来填补这一空白。}该过程导致载药量低（0.2-0.8%）和非常快的洗脱速率，这表明它们适合需要立即爆发释放的情况。实验辅以多尺度数学模型，以更好地合理化结果。这项工作构成了扩大 SCCO2 辅助载药规模的可能策略的概念证明，并强调了未来发展需要解决的一些方面。