Advantage And Disadvantage Of Wet Granulation Process

The wet granulation process is the traditional method of manufacture and is frequently used in the pharmaceutical industry. Expertise in wet granulation is widely available, as in the required equipment.

Granules

The process improves flow and cohesion, reduces dust and cross contamination and permits the handling of powder blends without loss of homogeneity. High-speed mixer-granulators, fluidized bed granulation and drying and an ever increasing use of automation have served to make wet granulation a much more efficient and economic process than it once was.

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Advantage Of Wet Granulation

1. Granules form are more spherical than the powder, hence has better flow properties, and suitable for different types of dissolution rates.

2. The wet granulation process improves the flowability, compressibility, and cohesiveness of the powder. This allows the use of low pressure during compression and reduces machine wear and thus improves the life of the machine.

3. The method of wet granulation can be used for high-dose pharmaceuticals with weak compressibility that is not affected by moisture and heat.

4. The presence of water in the form of moisture can help to improve the dissolution rate of hydrophobic drugs.

5. Wet granulation reduces the level of dust present during the manufacturing process as compared with other methods thereby reducing the incidence of cross-contamination and risk to workers.

6. It maintains the same density of all granules since good material uniformity is maintained due to particle segregation prevention especially for soluble low-dose drugs.

7. Tablets made from a wet granulation process are ideal for tablet coating.

8. The process makes use of conventional excipients and therefore is not dependent on the inclusion of special grades of excipients

9. Wet granulation prevents segregation of components of a homogenous powder mix during processing, transferring, handling and/or storage, leading to reduced intra- and inter-batch variability

10. Reduce entrapped air making it suitable for compression.

Disadvantage Of Wet Granulation

1. Problems include choice and method of addition of the binder and the effect of drying time and temperature on drug stability and its distribution within the solid mass.

2. The presence of moisture can cause a reaction between the drug/drugs and the additive.

3. The process is not suitable for compounds and excipients that are moisture-sensitive.

Read Also: Difference between dry granulation and direct compression

4. The dissolution rate of tablets produced by wet granulation may decrease with aging.

5. It includes several processing steps compared with other methods.

6. It takes more time, energy, space hence it is a costly method as compared with conventional methods.

7. To conduct the granulation process, we need an experienced person.

8. Wet granulation process requires more equipment and less space than dry granulation.

9. Incompatibilities between formulation ingredients will be aggravated by the granulating solvent which tends to bring them into close contact.

10. There is a possibility of material loss during processing due to the transfer of material from one unit operation to the other.