Advancing tablet lubrication: A systematic comparison of feed frame lubrication and internal lubrication

Abstract

For the continuous manufacturing of tablets, internal lubrication is often utilized. Here, lubricant is added to a pre-blend in an additional blending step. However, over-lubrication may occur, with a negative impact on the tablet quality. This study consequently focuses on the systematic comparison of internal lubrication to an alternative, named feed frame lubrication. This method represents a new lubrication type, where the lubricant is fed into the feed frame without prior blending.A design of experiments with shear number and lubricant content as factors was used. Target properties were tensile strength, disintegration time and contact angle. Based on the data, multiple linear regression models were created and optimized using backward stepwise regression.Feed frame lubrication exhibited similar or even improved tablet properties compared to internal lubrication. The tablets turned out to be harder with decreased disintegration times. Finally, feed frame lubrication reduces the need for an additional blending step.