Slugging to Roller Compaction: Technology Scale Up, Process Optimization and SeDeM Analysis of granules

Abstract

Granulation is the process in which primary powder particles are made to adhere to form larger, multiparticle entities called granules. Powders are often granulated to improve their flow behaviour. Roll compaction/Slugging is a widely used process for granulation without water. This method allows the granulation of materials sensitive to moisture and heat. The purpose of the study was to provide platform for technology transfer i.e. slugging to roller compaction. The study was carried out to relate envelope density of the slugs and roller compacted ribbons. Slugging was carried out by Korsch XL 100 by applying 32 full factorial designs in order to obtain three different envelop densities. Roller compaction was carried out by Chilsonator IR220 by using Central Composite design to minimize the number of runs. In this part of the work, envelope densities obtained from slugging trials was target. SeDeM analysis, a newer concept was used in the study to check the suitability of granules, obtained after milling of slugs and ribbons, for direct compression. The newer graphical method provided the practical evidence that particles of blend were converted in to granules and hence compressibility became better to that of original powder blend. The properties of granules obtained from two different processes but having same envelope density were very similar which shown the reliability of method as well as the correlation point can be used for technology transfer to get same envelope density of granules by both the method. Hence it can be concluded that technology transfer could be possible by using SeDeM analysis and experimental designs which shown better reliability.