Powder dosing within continuous manufacturing: A lean approach for gravimetric dosing configuration and equipment...

Area of Science:

• Pharmaceutical Engineering
• Process Chemistry
• Materials Science

Background:

• Selecting gravimetric dosing configurations for continuous pharmaceutical processing is complex.
• Existing methods may not be resource-efficient or adaptable to new materials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simplified, robust approach for selecting gravimetric dosing equipment configurations.
• To optimize material, time, and personnel usage in pharmaceutical continuous manufacturing.

Main Methods:

• Determined a reduced set of 17 material attributes from literature.
• Measured these attributes for 13 materials.
• Developed a predictive model using a subset of 12 material attributes and incorporating precision metrics (relative mean intra-bin variability) and model parameters (fmax, fmin, β).

Main Results:

• The model accurately predicts dosing configurations using a reduced set of material attributes.
• A simplified method for equipment selection was established, enhancing resource efficiency.
• Flat bottom-hoppers demonstrated higher dosing precision compared to round bottom-hoppers.

Conclusions:

• The novel model simplifies pharmaceutical equipment selection for continuous dosing.
• It introduces objectivity through numerical discharge characteristics and enhances resource efficiency.
• The approach offers new possibilities for continuous dosing by combining precision and curve fitting parameters.