Formulation of solid oral dosage forms
Formulation of solid oral dosage forms
Description
Tablets are typically fabricated by confined powder compression using tablet tooling of different types. Due to the application of force by the tableting punches, the volume of the powder held in the die is reduced until a coherent tablet of required fracture strength, attrition resistance and porosity is formed. Mechanical strength is hence a fundamental quality attribute of tablets and the ability of the powder to cohere into a tablet must be controlled.
The powder compression event involves a series of physical phenomena on the particle level which are expressed during a short period of time. Particles constituting the powder are typically of varying size, shape and porosity and are hence difficult to reproducibly characterize as single particles. An alternative is to derive particle properties from powder compression data and the term analytical powder compression has been coined for such an approach. Analytical powder compression (APC) is defined as the determination of compression parameters as firstly, indications of the mechanical and friction properties of particles and secondly, as predictors of the ability of the powder to form tablets.
The research group has developed a protocol for APC and is now further developing this protocol in terms of the assessment of elastic particle properties and the prediction of powder tabletability and compactibility. Current work also aims to extract useful information from the unloading curve and from cyclic loading experiments.