[learn_more caption=”Jeffrey Katz”] Jeffrey Katz is a graduate student in the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Duquesne University. His dissertation project is focused on characterizing and predicting strain rate sensitivity in pharmaceutical materials and formulations. Before attending Duquesne, Jeff completed several industrial internships with several large pharmaceutical companies. He spent time working in process development at Mylan Pharmaceuticals, and in product development at both AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim. He currently serves as the Student Representative for the Formulation Design and Development (FDD) Section Executive Committee and has also served as a member of the Student Post Doc and Outreach Development Committee. Jeff received a Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering and a Masters in Pharmaceutical Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. [/learn_more]

Compressibility profiles, or functions of solid fraction versus applied pressure, are used to provide insight into the fundamental mechanical behavior of powders during compaction. These functions, collected during compression (in-die) or post ejection (out-of-die), indicate the amount of pressure that a given powder formulation requires to be compressed to a given density or thickness. To take advantage of the benefits offered by both methods, the data collected in-die during a single compression–decompression cycle will be used to generate the equivalent of a complete out-of-die compressibility profile that has been corrected for both elastic and viscoelastic recovery of the powder. This method has been found to be both a precise and accurate means of evaluating out-of-die compressibility for four common tableting excipients. Using this method, a comprehensive characterization of powder compaction behavior, specifically in relation to plastic/brittle, elastic and viscoelastic deformation, can be obtained. Not only is the method computationally simple, but it is also material-sparing. The ability to characterize powder compressibility using this approach can improve productivity and streamline tablet development studies.