An investigation of drug release from granules linking structure, process and performance

High shear granulation is a key particle engineering technique which is used for particle size enlargement and was chosen for this work. The most influential and controlling parameters are liquid to solid mass ratio and granulation time, wherein these parameters were selected and varied with a fixed granule formulation to carefully study and examine the links between process conditions and the granule microstructure. The microstructure was quantified in terms of porosity by using several advanced characterization techniques and was found to be greatly dependent on the liquid to solid mass ratio. The results established that extended granulation times increased granule porosity which formed voids, and cracks were observed from 3D-imaging.