Design of a fluid energy single vessel powder processor for pharmaceutical use

This study introduces a motionless novel single vessel powder processor designed to carry out all of the unit operations in the preparation of powders for tableting. The processor used controllable fluid dynamics to provide the energy for each unit operation. The vessel design was evaluated using a computational fluid dynamics model which indicated the flow necessary for the intended processing operations to take place. The processor performance was evaluated experimentally for two unit processes: particle size reduction and dry powder mixing. The processor was found capable of reducing the size of lactose granules from a median particle diameter of 459 microm to a median particle diameter of 182 microm within 5 min under optimal process conditions. It was found that a formulation containing lactose granules (373 microm median particle diameter) and a model drug, sodium chloride (30 microm), could be mixed to an improved degree of homogeneity in comparison with equivalent powders blended using a conventional turbulent tumbling technique. It was concluded that a processor having controllable fluid dynamics offered the potential to perform multi-task processing of powders.