Abstract

CHARACTERIZATION OF POWDER FLOW PROPERTIES USING POWDER RHEOMETRY

Sunita Sule* and Sushama Ambadekar

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Abstract

Surface morphology of powder formulations can affect their flow properties. In this study, the powder flow characteristics of a high drug payload powder formulation manufactured as a ternary mixture and a co-spray dried formulation was studied. The bulk powder properties, dynamic flow properties and shear properties were studied using the FT4 Rheometer. The ternary mixture consisting of irregularly shaped particles exhibited higher conditioned bulk density, specific energy, aeration energy, pressure drop, compressibility values and low flow function values, indicating it is more cohesive than the spray-dried formulation. The spray-dried formulation consisting of smoother rounded particles exhibited improved powder flow properties compared to the ternary mixture. The powder rheometry study data provided insight into powder properties and correlated well with the influences of surface morphology of the two formulations in this study.

Keywords: Ternary Mixture, Spray drying, Powder Rheometry.