How Does Hot-Melt Extrusion Work

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hme services

A continuous process of melting a polymer under pressure and heat and forcing it through an aperture is known as hot melt extrusion (HME). We largely use Proprietary hot-melt extrusion at Abbvie Manufacturing.

Known for being created to create polymer goods with uniform shape and density, proprietary hot-melt extrusion has been used in industry since the 1930s.

We have some fun facts for you below about hot-melt extrusion

1. More than half of all plastic goods, such as bags, films, sheets, tubes, fibres, foams, and pipes, are prepared using this technology, which is one of the most commonly utilized in plastic, rubber, and food industries.

2. HME is now more commonly employed in the healthcare sector, where it is combined with polymers to create medical devices and combine active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with them

3. Hot-melt extrusion services are utilized to increase the bioavailability of the API or to create the building blocks for thermoplastic drug-eluting devices such as intravaginal rings and subcutaneous and intraocular implants.

How does Proprietary Hot-Melt Extrusion work?

HME entails compacting and refining blends from a powder or granular mix into a uniformly shaped product. By forcing polymeric components and active substances, including any additives or plasticizers, through an orifice or die at controlled temperatures, pressures, feeding rates, and screw speeds, polymers are melted and formed into products of various shapes and sizes such as plastic bags, sheets, and pipes.

The entire HME services compaction process can be categorized into the following steps:

(1) feeding the extruder through a hopper,

(2) mixing, grinding, reducing the particle size, venting, and kneading,

(3) flow through the die, and

(4) extrusion from the die and subsequent downstream processing.

The extruder typically consists of one or two spinning screws inside of a stationary cylindrical barrel that is either corotating or counter-rotating. To reduce the amount of time molten materials must stay inside the barrel, it is frequently built in pieces. The barrel's sections are then bolted or fastened together. According to the shape of the extruded materials, an end-plate die is linked to the end of the barrel.

Types of Extruders

We generally use two types of extruders: single and twin screw extruders. Twin screw extruders are used for melt-mixing polymers with extra ingredients (pigments, fillers, reinforcers, and APIs), for devolatilization, and for melting and transporting polymers to extrude them into continuous structures.

A twin screw extruder is preferred for the creation of pharmaceutical formulations that call for the homogenous and consistent mixing of numerous formulation ingredients because the rotation of the inter-meshing screws improves mixing to create a homogeneous solid comprising finely dispersed API particles or a solid-solution of API in a polymer.

Poorly water-soluble API formulations can have their bioavailability and dissolution rate increased by using twin screw extrusion to consistently mix the melt. To create drug-eluting devices with reproducible drug-release kinetics within and within batches, uniformly dispersed API is also necessary.

Applications

Due to its many benefits over conventional processing techniques like roll spinning and grinding, HME technology has already established a solid presence in the pharmaceutical business and academics which we use at Abbvie Contract Manufacturing.

Proprietary hot melt extrusion has recently arisen as a revolutionary technology in pharmaceutical applications because, in addition to being an effective manufacturing process, it improves the quality and performance of made goods. HME is primarily used to molecularly disperse active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in a matrix, resulting in solid solutions.

Hot-melt extrusion services have been used in the pharmaceutical industry for a variety of purposes, including

  1. Increasing the bioavailability and dissolution rate of poorly soluble drugs by creating a solid dispersion or solid solution.
  2. regulating or modifying the drug's release.
  3. masking the taste of bitter APIs
  4. formulating different thin films

Abbvie Contract Manufacturing is the solution for hot-melt extrusion services. We are very good at what we do.

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