COMPACTION STUDIES ON BEADS - COMPRESSION AND CONSOLIDATION PARAMETERS

The purpose of this work was to evaluate compaction of the beads conta ining microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). Although MCC in its powder for m is universally recognized as a very compressible material, studies i n these laboratories demonstrated that MCC beads prepared by extrusion / spheronization were not. In fact, MCC beads are very hard and not e asily deformable or broken. Therefore, the objectives of this work wer e to modify the bead composition by incorporating materials which migh t change the bead compactibility and to describe the effects. The diss olution properties of the compacted forms were also evaluated. To stud y the compaction behavior of the MCC beads it was necessary to modify the Athy-Heckel equation to describe compression and to combine that a nalysis with the Leuenberger equation to describe consolidation.