On the role of forces governing particulate interactions in pharmaceutical systems: A review

Process understanding for designing, optimizing and scaling of pharmaceutical unit operations is fundamentally important to address concerns of high risks, monumental costs, and productivity decline in the pharmaceutical industry. This is especially important in the rapidly changing landscape of the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical processes majorly deal with multiphase, multicomponent flows, basics of which are discussed in terms of fundamental contact and non-contact forces. Also, basics of multiphase flow regimes, powder flow, and pertinent process modeling techniques relevant to pharmaceutical unit operations are discussed. The most fundamental contact and non-contact forces are then reviewed in detail on their molecular or physical origin, factors which influence these forces, numerical formalisms and modeling strategies to simulate flows and processes of pharmaceutical interest.