Impact of Powder Properties on the Rheological Behavior of Excipients

With the emergence of quality by design in the pharmaceutical industry, it becomes imperative to gain a deeper mechanistic understanding of factors impacting the flow of a formulation into tableting dies. Many flow characterization techniques are present, but so far only a few have shown to mimic the die filling process successfully. One of the challenges in mimicking the die filling process is the impact of rheological powder behavior as a result of differences in flow field in the feeding frame. In the current study, the rheological behavior was investigated for a wide range of excipients with a wide range of material properties. A new parameter for rheological behavior was introduced, which is a measure for the change in dynamic cohesive index upon changes in flow field. Particle size distribution was identified as a main contributing factor to the rheological behavior of powders. The presence of fines between larger particles turned out to reduce the rheological index, which the authors explain by improved particle separation at more dynamic flow fields. This study also revealed that obtained insights on rheological behavior can be used to optimize agitator settings in a tableting machine. View Full-Text

Keywords: powder flow; die filling; powder rheology; dynamic cohesive index; excipients; tableting; continuous manufacturing; quality by design

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Janssen, P.H.M.; Depaifve, S.; Neveu, A.; Francqui, F.; Dickhoff, B.H.J. Impact of Powder Properties on the Rheological Behavior of Excipients. Pharmaceutics 2021, 13, 1198. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13081198

AMA Style

Janssen PHM, Depaifve S, Neveu A, Francqui F, Dickhoff BHJ. Impact of Powder Properties on the Rheological Behavior of Excipients. Pharmaceutics. 2021; 13(8):1198. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13081198

Chicago/Turabian Style

Janssen, Pauline H.M., Sébastien Depaifve, Aurélien Neveu, Filip Francqui, and Bastiaan H.J. Dickhoff. 2021. "Impact of Powder Properties on the Rheological Behavior of Excipients" Pharmaceutics 13, no. 8: 1198. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13081198

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Author Biographies

Pauline H. M. Janssen

Pauline Janssen is a Product Application Specialist at DFE Pharma. She has been working on application development of excipients based upon fundamental knowledge of excipients and powder physics. She joined DFE Pharma beginning of 2017 and worked as a product developer on multiple projects. As analytical expert, she supported in the design of experiments to understand products and its usage. Pauline holds a Master’s Degree (cum laude) in Physical Chemistry from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, with an additional specialization in Science, Management and Innovation (2016). Current research interests are in continuous manufacturing, powder flow, powder mixing, and material characterization.

Sébastien Depaifve

Dr Sebastien Depaifve is working as a Particle Scientist at GranuTools, Belgium. Sebastien’s current research activities focus on the characterization of the flow properties of powders and granular materials and the implications for various industrial applications ranging from additive manufacturing of polymer or metallic powders to tableting, and continuous manufacturing applications. Sebastien holds a PhD from the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the University of Luxembourg where he specialized in the covalent functionalization of carbon-based micro-/nano-particles and on the influence of the surface modification of nanocarbon fillers on the dispersion and the interaction with various polymer matrices.

Aurélien Neveu

Aurelien Neveu’s research activities mainly focus on the understanding of granular materials at different scales. During his PhD he developed discrete numerical models to describe fragmentation mechanics of cohesive granular materials by taking into account the complex micro-properties of the grains. Dr Neveu then moved to study segregation in gravity-driven rapid flows as well as aeolian transport of granular materials, with huge implications for natural disasters. He is now working as a particle scientist at Granutools, performing research on powder characterisation.

Filip Francqui

With over 20 years of experience in precision instruments business, Filip Francqui is the managing director of Granutools. Filip experience covers semiconductor, electronic microscopy and nanotechnology fields. His skills lie in transforming scientific breakthrough into a commercial successes. Before founding Granutools, he was managing successively the Belgian, Dutch and Indian business for the electronic microscopy subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific known as FEI company. Filip holds a Master Degree in Applied Physics from the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and an MBA from INSEAD (Singapore). He has numerous publications in scientific journals and holds two patents.

Bastiaan H. J. Dickhoff

Dr Bastiaan Dickhoff is Director of the Innovation & Product Application team at DFE Pharma. Bastiaan has been working on assisting application development of excipients based upon fundamental knowledge and powder technology. Prior to working at DFE Pharma Bastiaan held various roles in food and pharma at RSSL and GlaxoSmithKline (UK). Bastiaan holds a PhD from the department Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy at Groningen University, The Netherlands where he specialized in the relationship between lactose and API for inhalation. He has since published various papers in the field of dry powder inhalation, excipient variation, continuous manufacturing and 3D tablet printing.

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Impact of Powder Properties on the Rheological Behavior of Excipients

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