The pharmaceutical industry places very high demands on these granulation processes in order to be able to process particularly fine and sophisticated powders. The challenge is to granulate an active ingredient or a mixture in order to improve density, bioavailability and flowability. This is particularly the case with new developments whose active properties are not yet known in detail. Effervescent tablets also place very special demands on tablet production: they are limited to specific active ingredients and excipients and require a very dry working environment. In addition, the process should be as efficient as possible and thus cost-effective.
In laboratory-scale granulation in R&D, another factor plays a role as well: Due to the often high material costs, in this case it is important to get by with as small a quantity of material as possible. In addition, it must be possible to scale up the parameters obtained in development to a production machine.
Dry granulation with roller presses offers a solution to these challenges. This technology is characterized by its efficient and energy-saving mode of operation. The reason for this is that dry granulation makes it possible to dispense with auxiliary materials in the product as early as the development stage. This makes it possible to produce in a particularly resource-efficient way while at the same time obtaining a high-purity product. Another plus point is that reproducible results on a laboratory scale are also possible, with low material requirements at the same time.
In order to process mixtures of active ingredients into granules, Hosokawa Alpine has developed the Pharmapaktor APC C especially for the pharmaceutical industry.
With this compactor, the process for producing tablets and pills takes place in two steps: First, the powder is compacted by the rollers and pressed into flakes/pellets. Subsequently, the comminution into granules takes place in one stage or in two stages with the aid of the integrated flake crusher. Due to the exchangeable screens, different particle size distributions can be achieved, depending on the product. A specially developed start-up mode allows the machine to start up in the shortest possible time, thus keeping the amount of uncompacted material low. Together with the electromechanically adjustable roll gap, it guarantees optimum product yield.
The Pharmapaktor APC C is available in various sizes and can cover a correspondingly comprehensive range of applications - from very small quantities on a laboratory scale (50 g batches) to production capacities of up to 400 kg/h.
