Power consumption profiles in high-shear wet granulation. II: Predicting the overwetting point from a spreading energy

Granulation is an important process in the pharmaceutical industry for the preparation of solid dosage forms. For high-shear wet granulation, the proc ess endpoint is monitored using the device power consumption. However, gran ulation is very sensitive to variations in the feed product physicochemical properties and, in some cases, power consumption profiles can not be used for process control. In this paper, a model is proposed to predict the gran ulation overwetting point from the spreading energy of the liquid binder on the powder. This energy is independently calculated from measurements of t he powder true surface area, liquid binder surface tension, and liquid cont act angle on the powder surface. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.