HOW TO MAKE A TABLET – FROM POWDER TO PILLS?
The history of the medicines or pharmaceutical industry dates back to the late 19th century. The medical practitioners extracted the active ingredients from plants and animals to produce edible substance to treat the illness. Gradually, with the advancement of technology and science, the pharmaceutical machinery and tools were made. These pharmaceutical machineries appear to be essential to help transform the raw materials into shaped medicine and drug with the help of customized tablet tools.
However, the process of transforming the powder into a pill requires a whole lot of pharmaceutical machineries like – Granulation machine, mixing machine, drying machine, tablet press, encapsulating machine, punches and dies, packaging machine and other related auxiliary machines.
The medicines are generally available in the raw materials; they are almost powders or particles. In order to change this physical form of a tablet, three things are considered as the affective elements –
1. THE BINDING AGENT
The binding agent is evenly mixed into the materials in a certain ratio. It helps to make the ingredients stick together. Without the binder, the particles cannot be cohesive with each other. The binder is broadly categorized as “wet granulation” for wet binder, and “dry granulation” for dry binder.
2. THE PUNCHES AND DIES OR THE TABLET TOOLS
Before being compressed into a shaped tablet, one needs to feed the proportioned powder into the punches and dies that will determine its size, shape, and imprint.
However, the tablet tools should be fit on the tablet press machine, a single punch tablet press or rotary tablet press. The Punches and dies come together in the middle die from opposite directions. With external pressure of the up punch and the down punch, the materials in the middle die will be compressed tightly.
3. THE PRESSURE
Tablet press is available in two types – automatic and manual. An automatic tablet press machine is driven by power, while the manual tablet press machine is manually operated. The motor generates power that runs the belt and the turbine. The turbine then transmits the force to a spindle, which precipitates the revolving of turntable punches moulds. The revolving compression rollers smoothen the up and down movement of the punches. In this way, the pressure is applied to the punches, resultantly; the materials are compressed into tablets. The bigger the motor, the more the pressure and the tablets can be made harder, bigger, and stronger.
WHAT IS THE PROCESS OF TABLET MAKING IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
STEP #1
Fill in the appropriate material (a mixture of powder or granules) in the machine. Feed this material in the feeder or hopper system. Once you feed the material in the machine, the cam below the feeder systems will then lower the punches.
Resultantly, the die will be ready for the compression process.
An illustration of a tablet making process asks Prateek.
STEP #2
As the compression process begins, the dosing unit lifts the lower punches at an appropriate height. The upper cam then lowers the upper punches to an extent that they are inserted in the dies.
An illustration (The arrows show how the powder moves – from the time it enters the system through compression to ejection stage.) ask Prateek.
Both the upper and the lower punches are directed through the pre-compression stage where they are inserted a little in the die.
This forms a slug and removes air that might have been trapped within the material.
The punches then pass to the main compression rollers where a pre-programmed amount of pressure forces them, resulting in a compact solid – tablet.
STEP #3
It then moves to the ejection stage. Here, the upper cam pulls the upper punches to their initial position and the lower punches move upwards. The tablets are ejected from the dies through the discharge chute.