During the formulation of solid dosage forms coating, plasticizers are added to the film forming polymer to improve the mechanical properties of the coating shell of the drug product. For the coating formulation to be successful and in order to produce flexible continuous film, the plasticizer should be compatible with the film forming polymer (i.e. high plasticizer-polymer miscibility in solid dispersion) (McGinity and Felton, 2008). This paper proposes and compares different multi-scale methods to predict the compatibility between plasticizers and film formers. The methods are based on, i) Molecule charge density using COSMO, ii) Solubility parameter calculation using Molecular dynamics, iii) Mesoscale simulation using DPD, where we propose a coarse-grain model, and iv) experimental DSC analysis for validation. The methods are tested for various blends including HPMC-PEG, MCC-PEG and PVP-PEG. The different methods showed similar results; PEG plasticizer diffuses inside HPMC and PVP polymer chains, thereby extending and softening the composite polymer. However, MCC surrounds PEG molecules without diffusing in its network, indicating low PEG-MCC compatibility. We also found that DPD simulations offer more details than the other methods on the miscibility between the compounds in aqueous solid dispersion, and can predict the amount of plasticizer that diffuse in the film forming polymer network.

Liquid has a significant effect on the flow of wet granular assemblies. We explore the effects of liquid induced cohesion on the flow characteristics of wet granular materials. We propose a cohesion-scaling approach that enables invariant flow characteristics for different particles sizes in rotating drums. The strength of capillary forces between the particles is significantly reduced by making the glass beads hydrophobic via chemical silanization. Main results of rotating drum experiments are that liquid-induced cohesion decreases both the width of the flowing region and the velocity of the particles at the free surface, but increases the width of the creeping region as well as the dynamic angle of repose. Also, the local granular temperature in the flowing region decreases with an increase of the capillary force. The scaling methodology in the flow regimes considered (rolling and cascading regimes) yields invariant bed flow characteristics for different particle sizes.

Wet granulation process requires the addition of a coating agent or binder, typically composed of surfactants such as hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose (HPMC), water and a small amount of filler such as stearic acid (SA). In dry granulation however, the coating agent is added to the system in the form of fine solid particles. In both cases, a successful granulation requires good affinity between host and guest particles. In this study, we compare two approaches to predict the binder-substrate affinity in dry and in aqueous media, one based on the work of adhesion and the other based on the ideal tensile strength (Rowe, 1988). The novelties of this paper are four folds. First, the equations used in both approaches are generalized and rewritten as a function of the Hildebrand solubility parameter δ. δ is obtained from molecular simulations or predicted from HSPiP group contribution method. Secondly, a correlation between δ and the experimental surface tension γ is established for cellulose derivative (such as HPMC and ethyl cellulose). Thirdly, the concept of ideal tensile strength, originally formalized by Gardon (1967) for binary systems, is extended to ternary systems and applied for granulation in aqueous media. Fourthly, the approaches are tested for various systems and compared to experimental observations. For dry binary systems, predicted adhesive and cohesive properties agree with literature experimental observations, but the work of adhesion approach performs better than the ideal tensile strength approach. Both approaches predict that HPMC is a good binder for microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). The results also indicate that polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG400) has a good affinity with HPMC and stearic acid. For ternary aqueous systems, the results fully agree with the observations of Laboulfie et al. (2013).

In this work, we investigate the effect of capillary forces and particle size on wet granular flows and we propose a scaling methodology that ensures the conservation of the bed flow. We validate the scaling law experimentally by using different size glass beads with tunable capillary forces. The latter is obtained using mixtures of ethanol-water as interstitial liquid and by increasing the hydrophobicity of glass beads with an ad-hoc silanization procedure. The scaling methodology in the flow regimes considered (slipping, slumping and rolling) yields similar bed flow for different particle sizes including the angle of repose that normally increases when decreasing the particle size.

International audienceIn coating and agglomeration processes, the properties of the final product, such as solubility, size distribution, permeability and mechanical resistance, depend on the process parameters and the binder (or coating) solution properties. These properties include the type of solvent used, the binder composition and the affinity between its constituents. In this study, we used mesoscale simulations to investigate the structure of agglomerates formed in aqueous colloidal formulations used in coating and granulation processes. The formulations include water, a film forming polymer (Hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose, HPMC), a hydrophobic filler (Stearic acid, SA) and a plasticizer (Polyethylene glycol, PEG). For the simulations, dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) and a coarse-grained approach were used. In the DPD method, the materials are described as a set of soft beads interacting according to the Flory–Huggins model. The repulsive interactions between the beads were evaluated using the solubility parameter (δ) as input, where δ was calculated by all-atom molecular dynamics. The DPD simulation results were compared to experimental results obtained by cryogenic-SEM and particle size distribution analysis. DPD simulation results showed that the HPMC polymer is able to adsorb in depth into the inner core of SA particle and covers it with a thick layer. We also observed that the structure of HPMC-SA mixture varies under different amounts of SA. For high amounts of SA, HPMC is unable to fully stabilize SA. Affinity between the binder materials was deduced from the DPD simulations and compared with Jarray et al. (2014) theoretical affinity model. Experimental results presented similar trends; particle size distribution analysis showed that for low percentage of SA (below 10% w/w) and in the presence of HPMC, the majority of SA particles are below 1 μm in diameter. Cryogenic-SEM images reveal that SA crystals are covered and surrounded by HPMC polymer. SA crystals remain dispersed and small in size for low percentages of SA

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Granular segregation is a common, yet still puzzling, phenomenon encountered in many natural and engineering processes. Here, we experimentally investigate the effect of particles cohesion on segregation in dry monodisperse and bidisperse systems using a rotating drum mixer. Chemical silanization, glass surface functionalization via a Silane coupling agent, is used to produce cohesive dry glass particles. The cohesive force between the particles is controlled by varying the reaction duration of the silanization process, and is measured using an in-house device specifically designed for this study. The effects of the cohesive force on flow and segregation are then explored and discussed. For monosized particulate systems, while cohesionless particles perfectly mix when tumbled, highly cohesive particles segregate. For bidisperse mixtures of particles, an adequate cohesion-tuning reduces segregation and enhances mixing. Based on these results, a simple scheme is proposed to describe the system’s mixing behaviour with important implications for the control of segregation or mixing in particulate industrial processes.