Control over powder flow can be a sticky issue for tablet manufacture. Tim Freeman, Freeman Technology, and Debbie Huck, Malvern Instruments, look at new research into the relationship between particle morphology and powder flow that can aid tablet process engineering.
The ease with which powders flow is an issue of practical importance in pharmaceutical processing. Flow behaviour can have a significant impact on manufacturing efficiency – the speed at which a tablet press can be run for example – and can also directly affect product quality variables such as dose uniformity.
Effective control of flowability relies on understanding the factors that define it, but this is a complex area. Current knowledge is limited in many instances to general statements of relationship rather than quantified correlation, even for parameters such as size and shape that are easy to identify as being important.
Advances in powder testing, along with other key material characterisation techniques such as particle shape analysis, present an opportunity to change this situation. For instance, it is now possible to measure reliably the flow properties of a powder and relate these directly to particle morphology (size and shape). Such investigations lead to a better understanding of how particle morphology affects bulk powder behaviour under different conditions and, more importantly, how particle properties can be modified to control powder behaviour.
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