Foam Granulation part 2

The aqueous foamed binder used in foam granulation is comprised of a high volume of gas dispersed
within a liquid containing foamable excipients, forming an unstable thus, semi-rigid structure.
Effective excipients for pharmaceutical granulation are cellulose-ether species that encourage
substantial foaming activity and become binders in the process. Many approved nonionic, polymeric
excipients are also suitable foaming agents. The foam liquid might include additives provided that
they do not hinder its preparation. Semirigid foams characteristically exhibit carefully loaded
bubbles or a polyhedral morphology based on the gas-volume fraction although a minimum of 64%
gas is required for the foam to show some degree of rigidity. The quantity fraction of gas present in
foam is referred to as its foam quality sometimes. For granulation, FQ is normally kept in a range of
75-95%. Foams that are too wet lack adequate stability to pass on well and often just collapse on the
areas of processing equipment. Very dried out foams occupy very large volumes of space; exhibit
very high inherent viscosities; and more collapse in the current presence of shear than wetter foams
readily.
polymer extrusion
Continuous foam granulation with a twin-screw extruder was introduced in a research study
comparing the technique to the traditional liquid addition method. A successful methodology to
metering such foam in to the machine expected recognizing its solid-like behavior and using
approaches commonly useful for feeding mass solids rather than liquids. An auxiliary product,
known as a aspect stuffer to the extrusion industry, was found suitable for feeding foam. The medial
side stuffer is readily available commercially, and the physical setup and control software of most
extruders can be configured to support it. The side stuffer is usually a miniature, twin-screw auger
that mounts aside of the main extruder and conveys materials into a specified area of the process. As
a result of drag-flow actions of the rotating screws in the side feeder, foam is forced into the moving
formulation within the main extruder and partially collapses upon get in touch with, as the
remaining foam forms a layer between your extruder and powder barrel. The mechanism of foam
wetting in the extruder is under study still. A two-stage model proposed in a recent publication was
based on how foams prepared from liquids of different viscosities and having unique FQ collapsed
and drained under numerous shear conditions and also how they afflicted granule houses from the
extruder. A pressure-driven wetting stage is considered to occur at the real point of entry where in
fact the foam enters the process, with stiffer foams displaying greater resistance to quickly
collapsing upon contacting the non-wetted formulation. The remaining, uncollapsed foam pushes the
powder to form a layer preceding aside. The subsequent shear-driven wetting stage shows up
governed by the response of foam to shear; layers of stiffer foam collapse more readily under
mechanical shear to wet the powder beneath while wetter foams display greater tolerant collapse
under mechanical shear by establishing more stable morphologies made up of smaller bubbles.
These observations are thought to be related to the two-stage wetting mechanism previously
described, which causes the powder to be immediately isolated from the barrel wall by a layer of
foam, at least until it really is very well wetted. The powder in this case is certainly steadily
saturated with the binder over a much bigger area of call than in immediate liquid addition, which
minimizes the binder's local concentration in the porous matter. The lubricating characteristic of
foam granulation, where the foam coating isolates the powders from the barrel wall until uniformly
wetted, is an important point to be stressed for extrusion digesting. The lubricity of conveyed solids
impacts both electricity consumption by the machinery in addition to the exiting temperature of
granules.