Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1000772
28 July 2018 Tablets & Capsules I n recent years, continuous powder mixing has attracted increased interest in pharmaceutical solid oral dosage manufacturing, driven by a general increase in continuous pharmaceutical processing, which has traditionally been a batch-based industry. However, while continuous processing is widely used in bulk solids manufacturing, especially for processing large material volumes in industries such as minerals, foods, detergents, and construction materials, few studies have been published on continuous bulk solids mixing [1-4]. A representative group of particles passing through a blender operating at steady state will have a range of residence times in the blender, called a residence time distribution. This article explains how operators can use residence time distribution to design, better understand, and troubleshoot their continuous blending process. Using residence time distribution to understand continuous blending Fernando Muzzio and Sarang Oka Center for Structured Organic Particulate Systems Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University mixing and blending