Asymptotic analysis of drug dissolution in two layers having widely differing diffusion coefficients

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a diffusion-controlled moving-boundary problem in drug dissolution, in which the moving front passes from one medium to another for which the diffusion coefficient is many orders of magnitude smaller. It has been shown in an earlier paper that a similarity solution exists while the front is passing through the first layer, but that this breaks down in the second layer. Asymptotic methods are used to understand what is happening in the second layer. Although this necessitates numerical computation, one interesting outcome is that only one calculation is required, no matter what the diffusion coefficient is for the second layer.