Cholesterol monohydrate dissolution rate studies in aqueous micellar sodium chenodeoxycholate solutions.

The dissolution rate of cholesterol monohydrate in various concentrations of sodium chenodeoxycholate (1) was significantly influenced by the addition of strong electrolytes. The mass transfer resistances decreased with increasing electrolyte concentrations and attained an asymptotic minimum value predicted and experimentally established for the convective/diffusion-controlled situation. Reduction of the interfacial barrier to dissolution was many times more sensitive to Mg2+ than to Na+ at equimolar concentrations. Cholesterol monohydrate solubilities increased nonlinearly with increasing 1 in 0.01 M phosphate buffer at pH 8.0 and was not influenced by the presence of strong electrolytes. Measured diffusion coefficients gave supporting evidence that the effective micellar size remained the same within the various experimental systems up to 116 mM chenodeoxycholate. The experimental findings indicated that the interfacial barrier is electrostatic in character. They are consistent with the phenomenon of diffusion of negatively charged micelles toward a negatively charged cholesterol monohydrate surface and the subsequent collision complex transfer of cholesterol molecules at the crystal surface. The results and mechanistic interpretations are also in accord with the previous model studies on cholesterol monohydrate dissolution in the presence of mixed micelles composed of nonionic and ionic surfactants.