The tablet press can compress various types of dry and wet powdery granular materials into circular tablets or special shapes, suitable for industries such as pharmaceuticals, food, coal, chemical, metallurgy, building materials, refractory materials, etc. In recent years, with the deepening of GMP transformation in pharmaceutical factories, the production of tablet presses has also developed to a certain level.

It is understood that high speed and high output are the goals that tablet press manufacturers have always pursued. Major tablet press manufacturers abroad already have tablet presses with an hourly output of 1 million tablets. The Module D tablet press produced by Courtoy company has a maximum output of 1.07 million tablets per hour, while the 4090i tablet press produced by Fette company has a maximum output of 1.5 million tablets per hour. Its output is far higher than that of domestic tablet presses. In order for domestic tablet presses to catch up with foreign counterparts in speed and output, significant development is needed in tablet press design innovation, processing technology, automatic control, and other aspects. Today, I will take you to understand how a tablet press is used to compress pills? What are the methods available?

Tablets are sheet-like preparations made by uniformly mixing drugs and excipients and compressing them. Tablet formation is a physical compression process. The author learned that the preparation process of tablets mainly includes wet granulation and compression, dry compression, etc. The dry pressing method includes three types: crystallization pressing method, dry granulation pressing method, and powder direct pressing method.

Crystallization compression method. Crystalline drugs with good fluidity and compressibility only need to be appropriately crushed, sieved, and dried, and then added with appropriate amounts of disintegrants and lubricants to be compressed into tablets, such as sodium chloride, ferrous sulfate, etc.

Dry granulation and compression method. Some drugs have poor compressibility and flowability, and should first be improved by granulation mechanism. However, these drugs are sensitive to moisture and heat, and are not stable enough. Therefore, dry granulation can be used for tablet pressing.

Powder is directly compressed into tablets. The advantages of this method include time-saving and energy-saving, simple process, reduced number of steps, and suitability for unstable drugs under humid and hot conditions. The auxiliary materials used have good compressibility and flowability, and can still maintain this good performance of the material after mixing with a certain amount of drugs. Pharmaceutical excipients that can be used for direct powder compression include microcrystalline cellulose, spray dried lactose, calcium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate, compressible starch, micropowder silica gel (an excellent flow aid), etc.

Dry compression is an effective method for tablet molding, while wet granulation is another method for tablet production. The author learned that the preparation process of wet granulation and tablet pressing mainly includes the preparation of raw materials, mixing of drugs, preparation of granules, pre-treatment before tablet pressing, tablet pressing, packaging, quality inspection and other processes. Among them, granulation is the process of adding liquid binder or wetting agent to drug powder to make it into particles of appropriate size, in order to increase its flowability, make it easy to evenly fill into the mold holes, prevent sticking and flushing, and facilitate the key operation of tablet pressing.

The tablet press is the oldest pharmaceutical equipment in China's production history. China exported tablet presses earlier and had a large output. The number, variety, specifications, and output of manufacturers in China rank first in the world. However, it must be mentioned that the technology content of tablet presses in China is relatively low, and there is insufficient technological innovation. Although new products are constantly launched every year in our country, the ones with truly high technological level and added value are. Therefore, mastering the manufacturing methods of tablet presses and continuously innovating processes are crucial for improving the technological content of tablet presses.

It is reported that in recent years, tablet press manufacturing enterprises have begun to attach importance to product quality and adhere to the business philosophy of "winning by quality". The tablet press products developed have the characteristics of simple operation and convenient cleaning, especially when changing varieties, the cleaning is quick and convenient. With the continuous upgrading of technology, intelligence, flexibility, precision, automation, and scale will become the mainstream direction of tablet press technology development. Chinese tablet press enterprises need to constantly innovate and reform in technology, equipment, and talent to better promote the development of tablet presses in China.
Article link: China Pharmaceutical Network http://www.zyzhan.com/news/detail/60513.html