Compaction Studies on Beads: Compression and Consolidation Parameters

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to evaluate compaction of the beads containing microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). Although MCC in its powder form is universally recognized as a very compressible material, studies in these laboratories demonstrated that MCC beads prepared by extrusion/spheronization were not. In fact, MCC beads are very hard and not easily deformable or broken. Therefore, the objectives of this work were to modify the bead composition by incorporating materials which might change the bead compactibility and to describe the effects. The dissolution properties of the compacted forms were also evaluated. To study the compaction behavior of the MCC beads it was necessary to modify the Athy-Heckel equation to describe compression and to combine that analysis with the Leuenberger equation to describe consolidation.