Dissolution Efficacy of Various Advil Pill Forms in Gastric Acid-like Conditions

Abstract

Pills come in many shapes and sizes, and with various coatings. Some are powder caplets or tablets with thin sugar coatings, while others contain liquid inside a gel (Brookshire, 2017). These alterations may play a role in how quickly a pill is broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream (Brookshire, 2017). Speed is one of the greatest consumer desired benefits for relieving symptoms and many Advil pills claim to have fast and effective pain relief (GSK group, 2017). This experiment examined the dissolving efficacy of four types of Advil pills; Advil tablets, Advil caplets, Advil Liqui-Gels, and Advil Mini-Gels. The time taken to dissolve was examined at pHs 2, 3 and 7 using lemon juice (n=3), orange juice (n=3), and water (n=1), respectively, for each pill type. The acidic pHs were chosen to simulate gastric acid and breakdown in the stomach, while pH 7 served as a control. Our results concluded that Advil Liqui-Gel pills take a significantly longer time to dissolve at all tested pHs in comparison to the three other pill types, which took similar amounts of time.