Browsing by discipline "Pharmaceutical technology"

Granulation is used to improve the flowability of pharmaceutical powders, reduce the amount of fines and increase the density of the material. Roller compaction has shown growing interest in recent years and it is used ever more frequently in pharmaceutical industry. Roller compaction has many superior qualities compared to wet granulation such as good control of process and absence of moisture and heat in the process. It is also cost effective compared to traditional granulation methods. New APIs are often sensitive to moisture. Therefore traditional granulation methods cannot be used. In the roller compaction process powder mixture is fed between two counter-rotating rolls where the compaction occurs and ribbon is formed. After compaction the ribbon is crushed into granules of desired size. The aim of this study was to find out how the mixture ratio of plastic and brittle material affects the physical properties of roller compacted ribbons such as the strength and stiffness of the ribbons and the structure of the ribbon surface. The materials used were microcrystalline cellulose and dicalsiumphosphate. Nine powder mixtures of 0 to 40 w-% of dicalsiumphosphate were prepared after which the mixtures were roller compacted with the same compactor parameters. Two methods were developed to study the above mentioned characteristics of the ribbons. For the stiffness and strength studies a 3-point bending method was developed for Lloyd material tester. For the surface structure characteristics of ribbons a measurement set up for FlashSizer 3D image analysis device was designed. Bending tests for the ribbons were performed in two different directions. For each batch of ribbons a slope of the linear area and maximum point of bending curves were defined, which represent the stiffness and strength of the ribbons accordingly. Also Young’s modulus and tensile strength were calculated, which are characteristics of a given material. In addition area under curve, which represents the work done to break the ribbon, was calculated. The strength and stiffness of the ribbons decreased with the increasing amount of dicalsiumphosphate. A clear trend was observed. Also Young’s modulus, tensile strength and AUC decreased accordingly. The increase of dicalciumphosphate led to diminished compactibility of the powder mixtures. The compaction force was probably not high enough to fragment the dicalsiumphosphate particles. The ribbons showed higher strength and stiffness when the bending was done perpendicularly ie. across the ribbon width compared to parallel measurements. Also relative standard deviations were smaller in this measurement set up. The 3-point bending method could not mostly distinguish between adjacent formulations from each other but when the difference in the amount of dicalsiumphosphate increased to 10-20 w-% statistically significant differences were observed in most of the calculated values. The surface structure of the ribbons differed between formulations when evaluated visually. Ribbons with less dicalsiumphosphate had a surface structure that followed the knurled pattern of the compactor rolls better.

Flowability is an important powder character and, despite decades of research, there are still issues in finding a suitable measurement method. Common challenges are sample size and methodology’s suitability for cohesive powders due to their ability to form vault structures. Powder flowability properties depend strongly on particle features such as size and shape. As particles are in contact with other particles and materials, they receive electric charge and form bonds. In addition to these variables, the gravity and shear stress affect the powder. A combination of all these determine the powder properties such as flowability. Besides the particle properties, process and preservation conditions and especially humidity affects the powder properties significantly. Hence, the powder’s flow behavior varies in different conditions. There are several measurement devices available but none of them is able to yield intrinsic values. Reliability of the measurements presents another challenge as the measured values cannot be directly compared with published literature. Moreover, the flow measurement of cohesive powders is either impossible or extremely difficult with the devices currently available and the sample size needs to be sufficient. Hence, there is a need for new devices, which measure powder flow easily in small-scale. Small sample size is important especially when developing new, expensive drugs since their properties need to be explored in order to develop a new formulation. The aim of the empirical study was to develop a device, which measures particularly the flowability of cohesive powders in small-scale. A ground for the study was a device developed at University of Helsinki, which measures powder flowability by utilizing horizontal movement. In addition, the device breaks the problematic vault formation of cohesive powders by jolts. In the study a cuvette, which utilizes the horizontal movement and measures the powder flow, was developed. Flowability tests were run with five powders – Acetaminophen, Pharmatose 80M, Pharmatose 200M, Emcompress®, Avicel PH-101, Avicel PH-102, Avicel PH-200 and Maize Starch. The results were promising and the device was capable of classifying the powders by their flowabilities but more research is still needed.