The material characteristics of capsule filling machine

The material characteristics of capsule filling machine

Fluidity of filling materials

The fluidity of filling materials also refers to the smoothness. There are often powder and granule types of filling materials, etc. The fluidity of filling materials will directly affect the control of the accuracy of gel content. The Angle of repose, bulk density, particle size distribution and water content of filled powder or granule directly affect its fluidity.

Generally speaking, when the filling powder or granule is piled up, the Angle of rerest of granule is smaller than that of powder, so the fluidity of granule is good, and the filling precision of colloidal filling is easy to control. The bulk density refers to the weight per unit volume of powder or granule. In the filling process, the weight per unit volume is large, the fluidity is good, and the filling precision of capsule filling is easy to control. On the contrary, the weight of unit volume is small, the fluidity is poor, and it is difficult to control the filling accuracy of capsule filling. In the practice of capsule filling, it is easy to control the filling precision of capsule filling when the bulk density of the filled drug is above 500mg/ml, while it is difficult to control the filling precision of capsule filling when the bulk density of the filled drug is below 450mg/ml.

Moisture absorption of filling materials

Hygroscopicity of filling material also affected the accuracy of the capsule filling quantity control, when the filling powder or granule moisture content, the higher the viscosity is big, the more illiquid, viscosity will happen "plug powder" phenomenon (plug powder refers to under certain filling rod pressure measurement plate hole powder cylinder pressure the phenomenon), the general filling drug moisture content control in the process of mixed powder or granules is less than 4%. In addition, the hygroscopicity of filling material is related to its critical relative humidity. Generally speaking, when the purity of the filling powder or granule is not high, its critical relative humidity will be reduced, and the multi-component will increase the hygroscopicity. Both of these will increase the viscosity of the filling process, which will lead to a large filling volume and prone to the phenomenon of "plug powder". Excessive moisture absorption will also make deliquescence failure of drugs. In this way, the environmental humidity must be controlled in the process of filling under its critical relative humidity, and the relative humidity corresponding to different drugs is also different, such as penicillin ≤47%, and aminoglycoside ≤58%. However, the capsule body has certain requirements for humidity. If the humidity is too low, the capsule body is easy to break. Therefore, the humidity of the capsule filling environment is generally controlled at 40-60%.