Comparative evaluation of three methods for quantifying tablet brittleness.

A low value of deformation before crushing is an obvious and understandable measure of brittleness of materials including tablets. In this article, three methods based on deformation measurement in a flexure tester are compared. The simplest one is a plain measurement of distance from contact or selected start point till fracture.

A Simplified Model Structure for Compression Characterization of Pharmaceutical Tablets.

Despite, or maybe because of, many shortcomings, Heckel's equation is by far the most investigated compressibility model for decades. The somewhat overlooked Gurnham equation is proposed as a more stable and better fitting compressibility model. Combining this equation with a linear model for the strength/pressure relation provides a composite function identical with the often-used Ryshkewitch equation for the relation between strength and porosity.

Ockham's Razor Applied on Pharmaceutical Powder Compaction Models.

This investigation contains a critical survey of a collection of five well-known and often used standard models in pharmaceutical technology. The basic idea is to use the recognised Ockham's razor as a tool in search for simpler methods or explanations for these models. The study includes the indirect tensile strength of tablets, Pitt's equation for tensile strength of biconvex tablets, Adams' model for strength of agglomerates, Weibull's distribution for variability of strength measurements and Heckel's equation for compressibility.

Visualization and prediction of porosity in roller compacted ribbons with near-infrared chemical imaging (NIR-CI).

The porosity of roller compacted ribbon is recognized as an important critical quality attribute which has a huge impact on the final product quality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of near-infrared chemical imaging (NIR-CI) for porosity estimation of ribbons produced at different roll pressures. Two off-line methods were utilized as reference methods.

Miniaturized approach for excipient selection during the development of oral solid dosage form.

The present study introduces a miniaturized high-throughput platform to understand the influence of excipients on the performance of oral solid dosage forms during early drug development. Wet massing of binary mixtures of the model drug (sodium naproxen) and representative excipients was followed by sieving, drying, and compaction of the agglomerated material. The mini-compacts were subjected to stability studies at 25°C/5% relative humidity (RH), 25°C/60% RH and 40°C/75% RH for 3 months.