“How Tablets Take Shape: Exploring the Compression Process”

Tablets are one of the most common dosage forms as they are not only stable but also due to their ease of swallowing ensuring self-administration i.e. without any help from others. 

The tablets we see are a blend of active drug moiety and inactive excipients like diluents, binders, and disintegrants which are formulated in a way such that there is proper stable compatibility between the ingredients which are later compressed to give the required shape.

Tablet compression involves a series of steps at first the materials are loaded in the hopper from the hopper the materials flow into the dies through feed frames where the material fits in the dies and the dies which define the size and shape of the tablet and the punches which compress the materials in the dies and these punches are guided by cam tracks and then tablets are ejected out.

• Filling – granulation material from the hopper flows into the feed frame which has sufficient interconnected compartments and here the material gets into the dies, here the feed frame is critical in the filling of dies with granulation material. During filling the lower punch moves down to overfill the material and the next step is metering

• Metering In this step the weight cam adjust the weight of the material in the die and the excess is removed by wipe off blade and the excess material will again move to the front of the feed frame.

• Compression: Now the upper and lower punches move under the compression rollers and compression of material takes place.

• Ejection: During ejection the upper punch is withdrawn from the die cavity which is guided by the upper cam track and the lower punch will raise in the die cavity to eject the tablets.