Blenders and Its Use in Pharmaceutical Industry

In the Pharmaceutical industry mixing of materials, especially granulation materials is achieved through the aid of blenders. There are different types of blenders in use depending on the requirement. The uniformity of granules and powder materials is achieved through blending.

Why are Blenders used?

To ensure the uniformity of the final product, blending is an essential step. Usually, the blending stage involves the pre-lubrication and lubrication stages. In Pre-lubrication, only granular material is mixed and usually lasts 5 minutes and lubrication is done for 3 minutes; these timings are not exact. So, blending is done before proceeding with compression to add extra granular materials and to ensure proper uniformity of the blend, following blenders are used

Types of Blenders used :

• Octagonal blender
• Polygonal bender
• V-cone blender
• Double cone blender
• Bin Blender (Intermediate bulk container blender)
• Ribbon blender

V-CONE BLENDER –

• As the name itself reveals its V-shaped
• It works on the following principle
• V-shape of the blender causes the materials in it to split and recombine repeatedly resulting in uniform mixing of the contents.

DOUBLE CONE BLENDER

• In the double cone blender, uniform mixing of materials is achieved using tumbling motion
• Its design consists of two cones joined at their base
• As the blender rotates, material mixes due to tumbling motion.

Bin Blender (IBC Blender)

• In Pharmaceutical industry, IBC-bins are used for storing of the granular material. These IBC- bins are designed in such a way that, they can be directly attached to the arms of a rotating shaft and combinedly called as bin blender, Where the bin is rotated, resulting in uniform mixing of materials.
• Here IBC -bin can be used for storage, blending as well as transport.