Manufacturability and properties of granules and tablets using the eco-friendly granulation method green fluidized bed granulation compared to direct compression

This study aimed to compare the manufacturability and granule and tablet properties of green fluidized bed granulation (GFBG) and of direct compression (DC). Acetaminophen was used as a low compactability model drug. The process time of GFBG to produce final mixtures was comparable to that of DC, and thus GFBG could be considered a simple process. DC could not produce 30% drug load tablets owing to poor granule flowability, whereas no problems were observed in the GFBG tableting process up to 80% of drug load. Tablets prepared with GFBG showed higher tensile strength than those prepared using DC. Compactability evaluation results show that the yield pressure of the granules prepared with GFBG was significantly lower than that of DC, suggesting that the granules prepared with GFBG were easily plastically deformed. Moreover, tablets prepared with GFBG showed fast disintegration, which was faster than that of DC. We conclude that GFBG produces granules with higher drug content and desired physicochemical properties at low cost.