Determination of Changes in Flow Property of Different Mixtures of Powder Excipients with the Varying Amounts of Powder Lubricants

Abstract

A thorough understanding of the nature of pharmaceutical excipient is required before handling of these inactive ingredients during both small (laboratory) and bulk (commercial) scale production of dosage forms. The flow characteristic of powder excipients is directly related to both the physical properties of the material itself, as well as the specific processing conditions in the handling system. Flow property of powder excipients can be easily measured by checking few parameters and hereafter followed by a calculation. In this thesis work, values determined by Carr’s index, Hausner’s ratio, and angle of repose have been considered to represent the flow characteristic of powders, and the numerical data have been put into a linear graph. All of the studies presented in this thesis were performed without aiding the flow of powder externally, like shaking or pressurization. This experiment work for the thesis project has shown the improvement in flow characteristic while using lubricants in a drug formulation, as lubricants are supposed to enhance the rate of flow. Besides the numerical data, I have also presented the graphs along with the regression values, and equation about the represented data, thinking that it will be further beneficial for manufacturing new products or modifying the existing one.