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Technical Articles

Natoli Engineering’s experts have contributed their knowledge and expertise to the industry’s leading publications for decades. Here are several in-depth and insightful articles about tablet press manufacturing process, tooling, formulation, and training. In addition to our technical articles, be sure to visit our how-to video gallery to watch tutorials on how to set up tablet… Read More

Intro to USP <1062> – What it is and Why You Should Use it

There are a variety of factors like powder flow, material characteristics, compression pressure, turret speed, etc. that can affect the quality of the tablets and production run time. Any resulting tablet defects can exacerbate production costs, or even worse: result in no product at all! Therefore, it is necessary to characterize the tablet compression process… Read More

Intro to USP What is tabletability?

Intro to USP <1062> — What is Tabletability?

It is hard enough to create a successful tablet. But making one that’s robust enough to survive the journey from manufacturing to packaging is another undertaking entirely. And if overlooked, it could result in a tarnished brand reputation at best, and patients taking inaccurate dosages at worst. During this journey, tablets may turn, tumble, chip,… Read More

Rotary Tablet Press Cycle

Powder Die Filling Is Essential To Produce Quality Tablets

  by Robert Sedlock, Director, Natoli Scientific The tablet manufacturing process has many challenges. An understanding of the steps leading up to the final compressed tablet is crucial to the task of producing a high-quality tablet. The final tablet weight is a direct response of the volumetric filling of the die during the tableting process. Thus,… Read More

Tablet Tooling Nutraceutical Products

Manufacturers use tablet presses to produce a variety of products, such as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, veterinary products, confectionary products, and industrial tablets. Each industry faces unique challenges depending on the properties inherent to the formulations that industry uses. A variety of steel types and coatings, tool-design modifications and options, and tablet designs can work together to… Read More

Reducing Costly Scale-up Problems

Rushing A Product to Market Can Yield Some Expensive and Painful Lessons When scaling a new drug formulation from development into manufacturing, there is often a reality check regarding process scale-up and formulation performance at production levels. Problems with capping/lamination and sticking/picking are often first realized when a formulation is introduced to a level of… Read More

Approaching Tablet Formulation Step by Step

This article originally ran in the October 2018 issue of European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer magazine. By Jonathan Gaik, Natoli Scientific Tablet formulation development is a stylised process. Each formulator uses their own methodology. Some use the systematic Design of Experiments (DOE) approach, some test one variable at a time, and many use a combination of the two. However, all… Read More

How to Evaluate Powder Flow

In the July/August 2018 issue of EPM magazine, we wrote that most challenges in the tableting process begin with, or can be traced back to, powder flow. We mentioned in our article. In our article, we mentioned that conducting studies on a formulation in the R&D stage, and later in scale-up, can help identify and… Read More

Go with the Flow

This article originally ran in the July/August 2018 issue of European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer magazine. By Jonathan Gaik, Natoli Scientific The ideal active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) is one that flows well, is stable, self-lubricates, compacts well and is not strain rate sensitive. While all the listed properties are important, the one that continues to be critical… Read More

Multi-tip Punches and Their Impact on Compression Forces: A Case Study

Multi-tip punches are a cost-effective means of increasing tablet output without adding additional tablet presses. Multi-tip punches follow a similar principle as a single tip tool for the rotary tablet press, but operating techniques differ. Two common multi-tip tool configurations for B and D tooling are assembled and solid type tools. When choosing which configuration best fits… Read More

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