Plain granules were manufactured without drug by using the granulation equipments like high-shear mixture granulator and fluid bed granulator. Various parameters such as size, shape, density and a variety of different flowability measurements were used to compare the granules. This comparison depicted that granule formation was dissimilar for both the equipments. The high-shear mixer granulation requires short process time and demonstrated better overall flow properties as compared to the fluid bed granulator. The granules formed after using high-shear granulator were denser as compared to the granules formed from fluid bed granulator which were less dense. Even though the make-up of the granules was the similar for high-shear mixture granulator and fluid bed granulator, the properties of the granules were dissimilar, resulting in differences in flow characteristics. The granules formed by high-shear mixture granulator are large & spherical in shape with low porosity, high bulk/tapped density, wide range of particle size distribution, whereas the granules formed by fluid bed granulator with Standard distribution plate are small in size, irregular in shape, have lower value of bulk/tapped density, narrow particle size distribution and high porosity. It was observed that both Carr’s index and Hausner’s ratio were satisfactory for high-shear mixture granulator, whereas they were only acceptable for Fluid bed granulator. The varying mechanisms of granule growth have significantly affected both the particle size distribution and structure of the granules, depending on the equipment used. Evaluation of granule parameters concluded that the high-shear granules demonstrate superior flow characteristics than granules produced by the fluid bed granulator.

Dr. Vaishali Yogesh Jadhav, Mihir Surendra Lukhey, Akshata Suresh Geedh, Poonam Prabhakar Kambari, Siddhesh Shankar Dhonde, Shubham Sunil Gaikwad

Powder flow, fluidized-bed granulation, particle size, high-shear mixture granulation, density