A Continuous Operation Concept for a Rotary Tablet Press Using Mass Flow Operating Points

Abstract

In a continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing line the rotary tablet press was viewed as the master of control concept and defined the mass flow through the entire process. According to a conventional control concept, missing mass flow from an upstream unit operation leads to a shutdown of the tablet press. Various operating scenarios were simulated and the influence of turret speed on the tablet properties was experimentally investigated. Changes in the turret speed alter the critical process parameters dwell time and die filling time. Their influence was evaluated using two model formulations with different compaction behavior.

Design Space Identification and Visualization for Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

“…Su et al (2019) implemented model predictive control to attain specific product quality attributes that were met for a rotary tablet press (composed of filling, metering, compression and tablet ejection) as part of a downstream pilot plant [33]. Martinetz et al (2017) also considered a similar continuous rotary tablet press, which was designed to be robust with respect to varying feed flow rates for different product formulations [34]. Metta et al (2019) performed design and dynamic simulation of a continuous tableting line (composed of feeders, blenders, wet granulation, fluidized bed drying, milling + tablet press).…”