I just finished my fourth week at the Ramachandran Lab studying pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing. In my last post I mentioned that I completed an experiment in which the aim was to increase the size of the granules after performing granulation. Well, unfortunately the size of the granules increased way too much. In fact, the size of the granules increased to a size 3 times of our desire. So, after discovering these results, we had to change a few parameters on the granulator, such as increasing the chopper speed and decreasing the impeller speed. So, after we created the powders and did our experiment on the granulator, we had to measure the particle size distribution. But, something went wrong with the laser diffraction machine that automatically reports us the data in about 2 minutes for each sample. So, we had to think of ways to measure the particle size distribution without this machine. After badly failing at trying to fix the machine, I decided to measure the particle size distribution (PSD) manually. So to do this, we used a method of sieve analysis. With sieve analysis, we sieve the granules into different size sieves. After this we measure the total weight of the granules in each of the sieves. A picture of the machine used to perform sieve analysis is below.
After sieve analysis was performed, I had to go into Excel and manually plot the data. But, after receiving the average amount (D50) of the granules, even this created too big granules for my liking. The reason why I want a certain size for the granules is because an increase in the size of the granules to the size I am trying to get will make the fluidity of the tablet much better when users ingest it. Hopefully this week we will be able to get the desired granule size.
Also, it appears that the graduate student that I helped out last week also got bad results. Her experiment was trying to use the raman spectroscopy to test the uniformity of the active pharmaceutical ingredient in her tablets. But, after she showed the pictures to the company, they said that the pictures did not show what they wanted to see. In fact, they said that the chemical lost its properties and therefore the machine could not report the correct data. So, she assigned me to research different chemicals and ways that we can make sure the raman analyzes the tablets correctly. After reading articles and talking to her, we decided to decrease the temperature that the tablets were being dried at before ordering new chemicals. This week, after we make and dry the tablets and put it in the raman, we hope to get better results.
Along with working hard in the lab, I have also been enjoying my summer vacation. This past week I went to the golf course to try and fix my swing. Even in that experiment, unfortunately, I have been getting bad results. But, I have still been enjoying my time on and off the golf course.
Although I did get bad results, it was still fun being in the lab and performing experiments. I am looking forward to more experimental work!
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