Lubricants plays a pivotal role in manufacturing of tablets in pharmaceutical

industries, they are used to reduce the friction between the surface of tablets
and punches, prevents sticking of tablets to punches and increase the flow of
product. Magnesium stearate is the most widely used lubricating agent in the
pharmaceutical industry due to its well established lubricating properties.
magnesium stearate forms thin hydrophobic layers on the surface of the
excipients and API of the blend. The over blending of magnesium stearate causes
a reduction in tensile strength and hardness of the tablets. There is no
established analytical tool available to track the lubrication process of
magnesium stearate during the blending process. A novel analytical technique
called as Broadband Acoustic Resonance Dissolution Spectroscopy (BARDS) will
be used for the first time, to demonstrate the effect of magnesium stearate
coating on the other excipients of the blend. In addition to this, the impact of
over blending of magnesium stearate on the tensile strength and hardness of the
tablets are also shown. BARDS technique characterizes powders based on
reproducible changes in the compressibility of the solvent during dissolution,
which are monitored acoustically due to associated changes in the speed of
sound in solution. This study involves the preparation of two blends one with
lubricant (microcrystalline cellulose+Metaclopromide+Magnesium
stearate) and the other without lubricant (microcrystalline
cellulose+Metaclopromide).Both the formulations were blended for 30 min
and for blend 2, Magnesium stearate was then added and blended for a
further 60 seconds. The blends were fed through continuous feeder K-Tron
MT12 at different feed rates of 0.22 kg/hr, 0.55 kg/hr, and 1.00 kg/hr.
Samples were collected from six different locations of the feeder and
tablets were also manufactured from same blends and analysed using
BARDS
Figure 1 (A,B) represents the BARDS spectra for the blends with and without
magnesium stearate collected from three top and three bottom collection points
of the feeder using a sample thief. BARDS analysis of blend 1 (without)
magnesium stearate does not show variations for the samples collected across
different collection points. Whereas, for blend 2 in presence of magnesium
stearate a prolong delay in BARDS spectra is recorded. In addition, a statistical
difference is observed for the blend between all collection points