A study on the effect of drying techniques on the mechanical properties of pellets and compacted pellets

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) pellets produced by a standard extrusions/spheronisation process with a 40% ethanol/water mixture as the fluid component, were dried by four different techniques, namely: freeze-drying, fluid-bed drying, hot air oven drying and desiccation with silica-gel to less than 5% (w/w) water content. A 1.0-1.18mm size fraction of the dried pellets were characterised structurally and mechanically in terms of, shape, density/porosity (open and closed), pore volume/pore volume distribution, surface area, surface tensile strength, shear strength, deformability, linear strain and elastic modulus. An amount of 600, 700 and 750mg of the same size fraction of each pellet batch were compacted to the same tablet thickness and the tensile strength and volumetric elastic recovery of the resulted compacts were determined. Analysis of variance was used to assess the significance of the drying process on the property of the pellets and their compacts. The drying process did not influence the shape of the pellets, but all the other properties were affected to some extent. Pellets dried by freeze-drying were more porous, with most of the pores open to the atmosphere and had a higher surface area than pellets dried by the other methods. Pellets dried by desiccation contained the highest proportion of closed pores. The decrease in tensile strength of the pellets, which occurred with the increase in porosity could presumably be due to ease of crack initiation and propagation between the MCC fibres. The weaker pellets broke instantly before they were subjected to appreciable strain. The porous pellets needed a higher compressing pressure and work of compaction to produce tablets of the same mass and dimensions. This reflected their compressibility, i.e. relative decrease in volume of the pellet bed during compression. The strength and volumetric elastic recovery of the compacts increased with the increase of their porosity. The drying techniques, which produced porous, deformable and weak pellets, produced stronger tablets. The value of the volumetric elastic recovery of the compacts was also observed to increase with the value of compaction pressure.