Effectiveness of Lubricants and Lubmcation Mechanism in Tablet Technology

Abstract

A method for quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of the lubricant used in tablet technology has been recentey proposed by the authors It was based on the ejection force determination expressed as relationship between the force on the lower punch and the time (ejection curve).

The proposed methodology allows now quantitative analysis of the tablet ejection, considering that the lot of the parameters linked to the conditionning, tooling and operative procedure that can negatively affect the measurement, were optimized During the methodology development, series of ejection curves, relative to different type of diluent and a variety of lubricants, were collected Certain relationship between the form of ejection curve and the capacity of lubricant to reduce frictions was observed.

Starting from these observations, the aim of this work was to analyze quantitatively the ejection curves obtained with the proposed methodology, in order to have a measure of the effectiveness of the lubricant in the formulation. The ejection curve must be considered as an effective means for this type of analysis, mainly because its pattern modifies according to formulative parameters such as compression force and lubricant amount.

Moreover, the product of ejection peak value and area under the ejection curve gives a dependent parameter that appears to be very sensitive to the conditions affecting tablet manufacturing in terms of lubrication Because of its informative quality, this lubrication index could be profitably be used in the optimisation procedures for formula preparation.