The influence of powder size of chosen pharmaceutical powder excipients on drained angle as well as the correlation between drained angle and the mass flow rate of certain powder size fractions were investigated in this work. A method of the indirect estimation of the three-dimensional drained angle from the mass of the residual powder was used experimentally to study the influence of powder size fractions in range of 0.200-0.630 mm for sodium chloride, sodium citrate, potassium chloride, and potassium citrate. Failures of flow significantly increased the drained angles for powder size fraction of 0.200-0.250 mm. For the uniformly flowable powder size fraction of 0.400-0.500 mm, the faster the flow rate, the smaller drained angles were observed for excipients investigated. To estimate parameters of the flow equation, the measurement of material flow rates from the hopper of different orifice sizes is needed, while the estimation of drained angle is much easier needing only one hopper. Finally, the increase of the hopper wall angle of the standard conical hopper to 70 degrees could be recommended to achieve uniform mass flow and to reduce the adverse effect of powder gliding along the hopper walls.

Department of Pharmaceutical Technology Charles University Prague Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Czech Republic