Tablet Problems

During compression cycle we often come across the issue of  Tablet defects chipping and flashing. Here, we will analyse problems in machine as well as formulation leading to these defects.

Root cause of Chipping and Edging

• If Tablet after compression is not hard enough to handle the ejection it will cause chipping.
• Proper assembly of knock off plate is necessary failing to adjust the knock off plate will lead to chipping in tablet.
• Metal detector and deduster clearance will also lead to chipping and edging problem as in some cases the tablet edges tends to wear between sharp clearance of metal detector and deduster.
• Friability problem in granules in this case the technician cannot do much in machine except to minimize the thickness and increasing the weight than check the friability if problem still persists formulation needs to be changed.
• Exit chute is not placing the tablet properly in Deduster and we are getting edged tablet.

Root cause of Flashing

• Flashing is an problem of tablets in which Burrs/Sharp edges appear on the edges of tablet .
• It could be devastating in case of enteric coated and sugar coated tablets as the sharp edges tends to wear out as they rub in coating pan during coating process . If edges rub after seal coating it will render seal coating ineffective as the edges have broken down where seal coat is applied and subcoat solution enters the core of tablet thereby, failing the process of coating .
• Flashing is an severe problem which can lead to destruction of whole batch the basic reason of flashing is the clearance between the punch and die when we receive the new punch set we must check the clearance between the punches and dies do not accept the punch set if clearance is large enough to cause flashing.
• Punch clearance could be simply verified by inserting upper punch and lower punch in die and rotate them to check the clearance.
• Increase in clearance is also observed after continuous use the punch set should be replaced with time.