The aim of the current study is to present our work on the novel design aspects of continuous fluid bed granulator and application of continuous granulator for pharmaceutical industries. Experimental work has been carried out to evaluate the equipment design suitability for continuous granulation. In this study we would like to present the critical design and operating parameters like minimum fluidization velocity, spray rate, heat and mass transfer that determine the quality attributes of granules. Experiments have been performed to evaluate the continuous granulation of fluid bed process for low capacity granulation of 5-20Kg/hr. Experiments conducted varying the binder spray rate 8ml/min to 14 ml/min keeping the air atomization pressure constant to understand the droplet size, spray distribution for the continuous granulation. Evaluated the technical design aspects of fluidization impact of heat and mass transfer during granulation and the spray rate impact. Performed experiments with rice powder and α-lactose monohydrate and analyzed the quality attributes of granules produced. The quality attributes of the granules produced were analyzed and compared with quality attributes of granules produces with batch process.

The findings from the study are granulation was satisfactory with low cohesive powder like rice powder with the existing design. However, granulation efficiency needs to be improved above 40%. The granules produced are of poor flow properties. The design parameters like spray location, feed control system and operating parameters spray rate, air atomization pressure need to be optimized get better quality attributes of granules and to handle granulation of cohesive powders like α-lactose monohydrate.