A correction factor for bridging compaction simulator and different roller compactors.

Abstract

Roller compaction (RC) is an important dry granulation technique. Since pilot and commercial scale roller compactors, which operate continuously on a large scale, usually require kilograms of material per run, formulation and process development directly on such roller compactors is not practical. In contrast, a compaction simulator (CS) can produce ribblets, also known as "slugs", using only a few grams of material with sinusoidal displacement profile replicating the motion of a specific point on the roll surface. Thus, it is possible to develop RC formulation and process in laboratory using a CS-based material-sparing approach. However, because of the inherently different configurations for applying pressure between die compression and roll compression, translating uniaxial pressure from CS experiments to roll pressure during RC is often unreliable, leading to significant uncertainties in the critical quality attributes of ribbons, such as ribbon solid fraction (or porosity) and mechanical strength. The objective of this study was to identify a correction factor (Kp = uniaxial die compression pressure/roll pressure), by correlating the compressibility profiles from CS and a roller compactor of interest, to enable more reliable process translation from CS to roller compactor. In this study, a Kp value of 0.5 was determined for Alexanderwerk WP120 and validated for Gerteis Mini-Pactor and Bepex Pharmapactor. This value may serve as a starting point for translating the optimal compaction pressure identified based on CS investigation to common roller compactors, requiring only minor adjustments to attain optimal RC process parameters (i.e., roll force and roll gap) for a chosen roller compactor.