• Preprint 135

Technical Report 135, c4e-Preprint Series, Cambridge

Impact of powder dispersion on a wet-granulation system

Reference: Technical Report 135, c4e-Preprint Series, Cambridge, 2013

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Abstract

In this paper we present an experimental investigation of the effects of the shape of the initial powder distribution on a granulation system. Experimental data was produced by granulating designed powder distributions of lactose monohydrate with deionised water acting as the binder. Three initial powder distributions were constructed from sieve cuts such that the mean volume particle diameters are similar while the shapes of the distributions differ. The initial distribution shapes consist of a narrow unimodal distribution, a wide unimodal distribution and a wide bimodal distribution. The resulting product distributions are characterised and compared using a variety of statistical metrics. The product distributions are found to show markedly different characteristics. Increasing the variance while maintaining a unimodal initial powder distribution produced a broader, more evenly distributed end-product with the mode of the resulting distribution being the same as the narrow distribution case. In comparison to the unimodal cases, the bimodal distribution produced an end-product with an even larger variance, an increase in oversized particles, a decrease in fines and a right-shift of the product distribution of one sieve class. These results were found to be independent of the methods of characterising the product distributions.

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