Srinivasan Shanmugam
1*1 Pharm. R&D Institute, Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd., Hwasung, Gyeonggi, Korea
Abstract
Granulation, the process of particle
enlargement by agglomeration technique, is one of the most significant
unit operations in the production of pharmaceutical dosage forms, mostly
tablets and capsules. Granulation process transforms fine powders into
free-flowing, dust-free granules that are easy to compress.
Nevertheless, granulation poses numerous challenges due to high quality
requirement of the formed granules in terms of content uniformity and
physicochemical properties such as granule size, bulk density, porosity,
hardness, moisture, compressibility, etc. together with physical and
chemical stability of the drug. Granulation process can be divided into
two types: wet granulation that utilize a liquid in the process and dry
granulation that requires no liquid. The type of process selection
requires thorough knowledge of physicochemical properties of the drug,
excipients, required flow and release properties, to name a few. Among
currently available technologies, spray drying, roller compaction, high
shear mixing, and fluid bed granulation are worth of note. Like any
other scientific field, pharmaceutical granulation technology also
continues to change, and arrival of novel and innovative technologies
are inevitable. This review focuses on the recent progress in the
granulation techniques and technologies such as pneumatic dry
granulation, reverse wet granulation, steam granulation,
moisture-activated dry granulation, thermal adhesion granulation, freeze
granulation, and foamed binder or foam granulation. This review gives
an overview of these with a short description about each development
along with its significance and limitations.