Pharmaceutical Granulation
Little of us question how a tablet is made, yet so many of us use them on a daily basis, relying on them to relieve us of our aches and pains. There are many forms of medicines on the market such as liquid solutions, injections and tablets being the more common form, but also inhalation, patches, implantations and capsules covering the more specific ailments. The tablet however, is the most common form of medication. Here, we will discuss more simply how the tablets are actually made.
The tablets are made using the process of pharmaceutical granulation. The first step of this is establishing what ingredients need to be used. The part of the tablet that will actually attack the pain is called the active ingredient. This is a very harsh chemical, which if taken on its own can be very nauseating and harmful to your stomach. The active ingredient is therefore combined with excipients. These ingredients tend to soften the harshness of the active ingredient, and can be such ingredients like flavourings, colourings, disintegration ability and binding agents.
However, the active ingredients cannot be put with any random excipients. The two must be paired up, as some combinations will make the drug negated. Here, a multitude of tests are carried out, in order to make sure that amalgamations work. The active ingredient and the excipients must also be ground down into powder forms before being combined. Here, bonds will be created, allowing the ingredients to combine and €stick€.
There are two types of granulation, wet and dry. Wet granulation is when a non-toxic liquid is added to the powders which helps with the amalgamating. This mixes the ingredients together and ensures that they bond. Sometimes, this is needed when the active ingredients and the excipients are difficult to combine. Once the liquid has mixed, it then dries, leaving the bonding agents within the mixture; resulting in the two ingredients being combined.
Dry granulation doesn't have the assistance of the liquid to help combine the ingredients. This tends to be because the ingredients being used are sensitive to heat and moisture, and if they are exposed to this at this stage, then they may become inoperative. Instead, the ingredients are compressed and compacted under high pressure in order to densify the products.
The pharmaceutical granulation is carried out by various machines which are able to do part or all of the process. These machines have become so important in our daily lives without us even realising it. They are able to produce strong, robust, resilient tablets which can withstand any amount of handbag changing and dropping. The most important part of this is, that the drug itself will still work, because of how the ingredients are combined in the very first stages. The machines vary from industrial sizes for the big branded drug companies, to the bench top size for smaller companies.
Little of us question how a tablet is made, yet so many of us use them on a daily basis, relying on them to relieve us of our aches and pains. There are many forms of medicines on the market such as liquid solutions, injections and tablets being the more common form, but also inhalation, patches, implantations and capsules covering the more specific ailments. The tablet however, is the most common form of medication. Here, we will discuss more simply how the tablets are actually made.
The tablets are made using the process of pharmaceutical granulation. The first step of this is establishing what ingredients need to be used. The part of the tablet that will actually attack the pain is called the active ingredient. This is a very harsh chemical, which if taken on its own can be very nauseating and harmful to your stomach. The active ingredient is therefore combined with excipients. These ingredients tend to soften the harshness of the active ingredient, and can be such ingredients like flavourings, colourings, disintegration ability and binding agents.
However, the active ingredients cannot be put with any random excipients. The two must be paired up, as some combinations will make the drug negated. Here, a multitude of tests are carried out, in order to make sure that amalgamations work. The active ingredient and the excipients must also be ground down into powder forms before being combined. Here, bonds will be created, allowing the ingredients to combine and €stick€.
There are two types of granulation, wet and dry. Wet granulation is when a non-toxic liquid is added to the powders which helps with the amalgamating. This mixes the ingredients together and ensures that they bond. Sometimes, this is needed when the active ingredients and the excipients are difficult to combine. Once the liquid has mixed, it then dries, leaving the bonding agents within the mixture; resulting in the two ingredients being combined.
Dry granulation doesn't have the assistance of the liquid to help combine the ingredients. This tends to be because the ingredients being used are sensitive to heat and moisture, and if they are exposed to this at this stage, then they may become inoperative. Instead, the ingredients are compressed and compacted under high pressure in order to densify the products.
The pharmaceutical granulation is carried out by various machines which are able to do part or all of the process. These machines have become so important in our daily lives without us even realising it. They are able to produce strong, robust, resilient tablets which can withstand any amount of handbag changing and dropping. The most important part of this is, that the drug itself will still work, because of how the ingredients are combined in the very first stages. The machines vary from industrial sizes for the big branded drug companies, to the bench top size for smaller companies.
Source...