Knowledge Base

The recent European ban of titanium dioxide in Food and Nutraceutical products creates a huge challenge for the industry and raises wider concerns over its potential extension to the pharmaceutical sector. With thousands of pharmaceutical products currently using titanium dioxide in tablet or capsule coatings, the reformulation race is on to identify suitable alternatives.

Investigating drug dissolution enhancement and controlled release of solid-liquid hybrid dosage form using Liqui-Pellet technology.

Discover how the Caleva Multi Lab was used to demonstrate the flexibility and potential of Liqui-Pellets as the next generation oral dosage form.

Discover how Caleva extrusion and spheronization equipment supported a university master’s student in his scientific breakthrough, resulting in his publication in a recognised industry journal.

Discover how to cut your formulation development time in half with the Caleva Multi Lab and its wide range of variable density dies.

At Caleva, we offer a variety of extruders to meet your needs, from laboratory scale extruders for research and development purposes, to pilot scale extruders and larger models for batch production environments.

Did you know that the Mixer Torque Rheometer (MTR) is designed to carry out 3 separate experiments essential to your formulation development and production?

The process of spheronization consists of four key steps:-

• To optimize and achieve the right binder addition  & mixing time for your formulation
• Mixing or granulation - a mixer or granulator is required
• Extrusion - an extruder is required
• Spheronization - a spheronizer is required
• Drying and possibly coating - a coater and drier may be required

This is all made simple by the Caleva suite of R&D...

Our customer, a major pharmaceutical, biotech & nutraceutical manufacturer with an extensive portfolio of products. For reasons of confidentiality we do not name them.

One of our Production Extruder & Spheronizer Systems for manufacturing on a large-scale was used in trials by the manufacturer, but the pellets produced were not acceptable. As the product was already registered, the composition...

Download a PDF version of this guide at the bottom of the page

What is Spheronization?

Spheronization (sometimes referred to as Marumerization) is the process where extrudates (the output from an extruder) are shaped into small rounded or spherical pellets (spheroids, beadlets). The pellets usually vary in size from 0.4 to 3.0 mm. Pellets can be used in a wide variety of industries.

Why...

The Caleva Multi-Lab (CML) can Mix/Granulate, Extrude and Spheronize all in one base unit.

This article is about the Extruder attachment that comes with the CML.

The Multi-lab is capable of working with a variety of materials from catalysts and pharmaceuticals, to agricultural products.

The Extruder

The extrusion attachment on the CML is in the form of a single screw extruder. A variety of dies...

It is not possible to extrude and spheronize everything.  Extrusion and spheronization can be used on a wide range of products and formulations.  However, if you are having trouble extruding your formulations with the Caleva Multi Lab (CML) then please read this article.

Caleva offers extruder screws of different designs for use with the CML. If you are having issues with the CML then the first...

Wet granulations are a useful precursor to many solid dosage formulations and as such are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. Because of the diverse nature of pharmaceutical materials, granulation is often employed as an intermediate process to enhance flow and compaction properties and improve the final product performance. The properties of a wet granule have a critical effect on the...

In the process of extrusion, having different dies available to process your product is key to increasing your chances of development success.  This is why we offer a large range of dies to help you find the best options for your formulation.

We offer die plates that are excellent for most uses, like our 1 x 1 mm die, however sometimes a more specialist die may be needed. Our trilobe and...

An opportunity in laboratory extrusion with catalyst material.  We have recently had some considerable success with one of our customers working with the extrusion of small quantities of catalytic material.

Using the Caleva Multi Lab it is possible to extrude of small quantities of catalytic material, whilst increasing the surface area to volume ratio of the extrudate produced.

The Caleva Multi Lab (CML) is faster and easier to clean than any comparable bench-top extrusion & spheronization equipment.

Is there a guide to the optimum Length to Diameter ratio of the extrudate fragments?

In the calculations used to demonstrate the data it is assumed that the extrudate is an infinitely long strand. In this case the length of the extrudate has no influence on the data shown. In reality, extrudate is not infinitely long and as the individual strands of the extrudate produced become shorter, the...

The Mixer Torque Rheometer's Consistency Test 

To ensure consistency is maintained during scale up and production, the Mixer Torque Rheometer can be used to perform a quick and simple test which monitors the consistency of the wet granulation during the mixing phase. This test can be used whether you are working with continuous or batch production.