Thesis
Development of a micro-feeder for cohesive pharmaceutical powders
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2024
- Thesis identifier
- T16975
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201990679
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has been striving to improve drug manufacturing processes to enable the accurate production of small batches for precision medicine and small-scale clinical trial medicine manufacturing. This aims to reduce manufacturing costs, improve drug manufacturing effectiveness, and ultimately provide more affordable life-saving medicines to the public. An important step in the manufacturing route for oral medicines is the consistent feeding of powdered materials, as any variation in the feed stream directly affects the quality attributes of the final drug product. However, achieving consistent and accurate powder flow rates in micro-feeding has remained a challenge in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries, and current technologies such as screw feeders and vibrating feeders have limitations in meeting the precision and flow rate requirements of the pharmaceutical industry, particularly for future precision medicine products. This research aimed to develop a novel micro-feeder for pharmaceutical drug manufacturing that provides accurate and consistent powder feeding. In this research study, two novel micro-feeders were developed that could consistently and accurately feed typical pharmaceutical materials at rates below 10 g/h, regardless of their sticky or cohesive nature. To achieve this, the initial micro-feeder design utilised a pneumatic approach with adjustable inserts and a plug to maintain low air velocity, critical for entrainment energy control to ensure consistent and accurate powder feeding. The second micro-feeder design featured a feeding screw and double-screw agitator to regulate powder flow. The feeding screw was inclined to control powder flow variation, while the agitator prevented issues such as rat holes or arching. Achieving control over the flow rate and minimising flow rate variations can be accomplished by adjusting the speeds of the screw and agitator. This design also addressed the challenge of refilling, which commercial feeders commonly face. In this study, five different materials were used to assess the performance of the developed micro-feeders. The results demonstrated that these micro-feeders could continuously and consistently feed cohesive materials at a flow rate as low as 1 g/h. Furthermore, the effect of process parameters on the performance of the developed micro-feeder was studied to gain a deeper understanding of the system and to optimise its performance. As a result of the innovative and promising nature of these micro-feeders, a patent was filed in May 2022. The developed technology holds significant potential for commercialisation in precision medicine and is expected to have a long-term impact on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Markl, Daniel
- Resource Type
- DOI
Relazioni
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PDF of thesis T16975 | 2024-06-14 | Pubblico | Scaricare |