Tuesday, January 29, 2013

WHY WE PREFER GRANULES OVER POWDER?



A few advantages of granules over powders are listed below:
 1. Granules flow better than powders.  The easy flow characteristics are important in supplying drug materials from the hopper or feeding container into the tableting presses.  For this reason powder mixtures are usually granulated if they are intended to be compressed into tablets.  Granules also eliminate or control dust.
2. Granules increase compressibility.
3.  Granules have smaller surface area than a comparable volume of powders. This makes granules more stable physically and chemically than the corresponding powders.  Granules are less likely to cake or harden upon standing than are powders.
4.  Granules are more easily wetted by a solvent than are certain powders, so that granules are also preferred in making solutions.  Example:  Principen® (ampicillin) for Oral Suspension (Squibb).  Ampicillin is unstable in aqueous solution, so it is usually prepared as granules and reconstituted by a pharmacist with purified water just prior to dispensing.  The granules also contain colorants, flavorants, and other pharmaceutical ingredients, so the resulting solution or suspension has all the desired medicinal and pharmaceutical features of a liquid pharmaceutical.
5.  Granules produce particle size uniformity, thus content uniformity.
6. Can mask the bitter taste of powder when these powders are granulated with flavoured excepients


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