Abstracto

Impact of Particle Size on Content Uniformity

Ujwal Shreenag Meda, Rakesh2, Sidharth S N, Chandra, Latha B R

Several products of pharmaceutical and food industries are a blend of various powders or bulk solids. These powder blends often have active/minor ingredients such as active pharmaceutical ingredients or food additives. Minor ingredient is one which is present in small quantity which has to be uniformly distributed throughout the mixture. Hence mixing of powders is a very important part of production. Content uniformity of mixture is said to be achieved when the proportion of the ingredients is identical all over the mixture. Particle size of active ingredient plays an important role in achieving content uniformity. Mixing experiments were carried out on a binary mixture using an inhouse mortar mixer to test the impact of particle size on content uniformity. The binary system consisted of wheat flour and common salt (Sodium Chloride). Sodium chloride, minor ingredient, of varying particle size was considered for the experiments and the content uniformity was tested for different mixing times. Results showed that smaller the particles better the content uniformity.