Two-compartment pharmacokinetic models for chemical engineers

A series of experiments, inspired by two-compartment model, were designed to introduce chemical engineering students to pharmacokinetics and to stimulate their interest in research related to drug delivery and drug pharmacokinetics. According to two-compartment model representation, the human body is comprised of a central compartment consisting of the blood/plasma and well-perfused tissues, and a peripheral compartment mainly composed of poorly perfused tissues. Samples were collected every 15 minutes for both the central and the peripheral compartments and analyzed with a spectrophotometer set at 530 nm. The results show that multiple bolus-injections and constant-rate infusions can be studied after a slight modification of the model and initial conditions. The optimization code, based on a two-compartment model and written in the Mathematica® environment, minimized the sum of squared errors between the concentrations in the central compartment and a desired KMnO₄ level of 3.46 g/L for an experimental duration of 5.75 hours.