Quantification of Tribocharging of Pharmaceutical Powders in V-Blenders: Experiments, Multiscale Modeling, and Simulations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2016

Abstract

Pharmaceutical powders are very prone to electrostatic charging by colliding and sliding contacts. In pharmaceutical formulation processes, particle charging is often a nuisance and can cause problems in the manufacture of products, such as affecting powder flow, fill, and dose uniformity. For a fundamental understanding of the powder triboelectrification, it is essential to study charge transfer under well-defined conditions. Hence, all experiments in the present study were conducted in a V-blender located inside a glove box with a controlled humidity of 20%. To understand tribocharging, different contact surfaces, namely aluminum, Teflon, poly methyl methacrylate, and nylon were used along with 2 pharmaceutical excipients and 2 drug substances. For the pharmaceutical materials, the work function values were estimated using MOPAC, a semiempirical molecular orbital package which has been previously used for the solid-state studies and molecular structure predictions. For a mechanistic understanding of tribocharging, a discrete element model incorporating charge transfer and electrostatic forces was developed. An effort was made to correlate tribocharging of pharmaceutical powders to properties such as cohesive energy density and surface energy. The multiscale model used is restricted as it considers only spherical particles with smooth surfaces. It should be used judiciously for other experimental assemblies because it does not represent a full validation of a tightly integrated model.

Identifier

84964550192 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xphs.2015.12.024

e-ISSN

15206017

ISSN

00223549

PubMed ID

26921122

First Page

1467

Last Page

1477

Issue

4

Volume

105

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