Abstract
In this work wet granulation experiments were carried out in a planetary mixer with the aim to develop a novel analytical tool based on surface texture analysis. The evolution of a simple formulation (300g of microcrystalline cellulose with a solid binders pre-dispersed in water) was monitored from the very beginning up to the end point and information on the kinetics of granulation as well as on the effect of liquid binder amount were collected. Agreement between texture analysis and granules particle size distribution obtained by sieving analysis was always found. The method proved to be robust enough to easily monitor the process and its use for more refined analyses on the different rate processes occurring during granulation is also suggested.
Highlights
Wet granulation is a common pharmaceutical operation aiming at eliminating unfavorable properties of fine powders, improving flow properties, compaction characteristics and composition homogeneity of the granulated products
The strictly controlled lighting conditions adopted in such works can not be obtained inside the mixer in dynamic conditions so that we limited the study to the use of a simple texture index, the standard deviation (STD), related to particle size in average sense
The results in terms of STD of the gray-scale histogram are shown in Figure 4 where it can be appreciated that the STD increased monotonically with the granules size in a quite large size range
Summary
Wet granulation is a common pharmaceutical operation aiming at eliminating unfavorable properties of fine powders, improving flow properties, compaction characteristics and composition homogeneity of the granulated products. All these phases (excepted drying) are often carried out in mechanically agitated vessels which can promote efficient mixing of cohesive materials Such mixers exert an intense local shear on the powder which breaks down the small cohesive aggregates (Harnby, 1997), promotes a good liquid dispersion and a proper product consolidation (Cavinato et al, 2010). They are generally constituted by a vessel and an impeller rotating about an horizontal or a vertical axis. Monitoring the behavior of a wet bed of powders and following its evolution during time is
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