| Summary: | Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are commonly prescribed for different diseases. A common problem for this wide class of drugs is their low bioavailability, strictly linked to their poor water solubility and, therefore, to their low dissolution rate. In the last years, many studies on novel Drug Delivery Systems (DDS) were performed to improve those drugs dissolution rate. An innovative approach consists in the adsorption of the active principle on a porous substrate. Polysaccharide aerogels are biodegradable and biocompatible; moreover, they are characterized by open pore structures and high surface areas. For these characteristics, they are particularly suitable to be loaded with an active ingredient. In this work, the environmental impacts of starch aerogel loaded with nimesulide, a widely employed nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, using supercritical carbon dioxide impregnation were calculated, following a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. All the emissions to air, water and soil were reported to a 1.5 g starch aerogel tablet containing the therapeutic dose of nimesulide (100 mg). The life cycle assessment analysis was conducted using SimaPro 8.5.2 software, whereas the Ecoinvent 3.4 database and primary data were used for the life cycle inventory, according to the reference standard for LCA (i.e., ISO 14040-14044). A cradle-to-factory gate approach was followed; therefore, the system boundaries were set from the agricultural stages to the supercritical impregnation. The ReCiPe method was used to evaluate the effect of the tablet production on the midpoint and damage impact categories.
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