Pharmaceuticals / nutraceuticals

Pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and medical nutrition powders span an enormous range – from fine excipients and APIs to protein blends, infant formulas and sports nutrition products – and must flow reliably at every stage: ingredient handling and mixing, spray drying or agglomeration, tablet pressing, capsule filling, and finally dispensing or reconstitution by the patient or consumer.

Many pharmaceutical formulations contain fine, cohesive, or moisture-sensitive components whose behaviour is history-dependent: how a powder flows during filling depends on how it has been stored, conditioned, and stressed beforehand. Dose accuracy, content uniformity, and scale-up reliability all depend on capturing this complexity. Dynamic testing with the Powder Flow Analyser measures powders under conditions that reflect real processing environments – including the effect of speed, cycling, and consolidation – while Texture Analyser tests provide complementary data on compaction, elastic recovery, and cake strength.

View examples of published work:

Powder stearin-based methyl ester sulfonates and the effect of glidant and amorphous and co-amorphous olanzapine powder blends.

• Ethylcellulose is the most cohesive of the three samples (CI 28.15) and shows the strongest "easier at speed" profile of any sample on this page – its compaction coefficient drops sharply as speed increases (ratio 0.24), meaning it offers considerably less resistance to a fast-moving rotor than a slow one. Combine this with a high cake strength of around 300 g and a moderate cake fraction, and the practical story is one of cohesive handling difficulty alongside a meaningful risk of storage-induced set-up: a powder that may restart poorly after a production dwell.
• Protein powder is notable less for its cohesion index than for its bridging value – the highest of the three at 817 – which indicates a tendency toward intermittent, arching-type discharge failure rather than steady cohesive resistance. It also becomes easier at speed (ratio 0.54), but the high bridging means that flow interruptions are the more likely production problem rather than speed-related packing changes. Cake formation is moderate (0.52): some consolidation occurs but the resulting cake is not particularly hard.
• Slimming powder is the most moderate of the three: lower cohesion, lower bridging, and a speed ratio close to 1.0, meaning its behaviour is essentially unchanged across the test speed range. For a nutraceutical blend, this represents a relatively stable filling profile – less susceptible to the kind of speed-dependent or cycling-induced drift seen in the other two samples. The elastic recovery point is worth noting for this type of blend: if compaction is involved at any stage, the work required to compress and the degree of springback will influence capsule or sachet fill consistency.

Powder Flow Analyser – Dynamic behaviour

Texture Analyser – Static strength and compaction