Flow behavior under shear cell analysis of two HMPC grades

A comparative analysis was conducted to examine the flow characteristics of two HPMC grades and their fractions. Excipients processing contains critical steps in the manufacturing of solid dosage forms and therefore it is essential to determine their flowability. Flow characterization was done using conventional and shear cell methods. After the division into different particles size, HPMC2910 showed an increase of the ffc for the fractions with the largest particle size and HPMC2208 showed an unprecedented result for the fraction with the smallest size. Thus, for this excipient, the best ffc was obtained with the fraction containing the smallest particles which surprisingly contradicted the literature (shape effect overlapped the size effect). It was also found for different fractions that the ffc increased with the increasing of the sigma 1, showing in some of them a decrease of the same from a certain sigma 1 value. Furthermore, caking was not observed in both cases.