1. Sago Granulation and Sizing
ICAAET
Paper code : 323
Review on techniques for
Sago Granulation and Sizing
S. M. Raj Kumar,
AP/Mech,
EBETi.

2. Introduction Sago (Javvarisi) - tapioca root. Constituents:
60-70 % moisture
20-31% carbohydrate
7-12% protein
5-13% starch
low content of vitamins and minerals.
Starch and sago production in India is projected to attain 0.4 and 0.3 million tons
Require suitable mechanisms
Process: fleshing the tapioca roots, extracting and settling the milk, forming, granule sizing and roasting.
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3. Granulation Theory
Agglomeration processes: Process for size increase. Fine solid particles are connected to particle collectives.
Tumble agglomeration (growth or agitation)
Press agglomeration (compaction)
Continuous sheets
Solid forms (tablets)
Sintering (thermal process)
Beetle rolling ball of dirt
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4. Granulation Methods Dry granulation Direct compression
Wet granulation.
Dry granulation:
Powder particles are aggregated under high pressure
Large size granule: heavy-duty press or two rollers.
Appropriate milling technique to produce granule.
Advantages: uses less equipment and space, no binder required and improved disintegration since no binder.
Disadvantages: specialized heavy-duty press, poor uniform colour distribution, process tends to create more dust, increasing the potential contamination.
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5. Granulation Methods Direct compression:
Steps: milling of materials, mixing of materials and compression.
The advantages: less machinery, less space requirement, less power consumption, less time, faster dissolution, less wear & tear of punches, easy validation.
Disadvantages: splitting or layering of granule is sometimes connected with air trap, require better sophistication in blending and compression equipments and the equipments are expensive.
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6. Granulation Methods Wet granulation: Steps Limitations
Mixing of binder solution & powder mixture.
Massing and screening of wet mass by sieve.
Drying of moist granules.
Screening of dry granules through a sieve.
Limitations
Heavy mixing equipment.
Expensive process because of labor, time, equipment and space requirements.
Loss of material during various stages of processing.
Multiple processing steps and control difficulty.
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7. Mechanism of wet granulation
Liquid films: Addition of binder causes the particle to adhere with each other.
Agglomerates and growth of granules
Nucleation of particles.
Coalescence between agglomerates.
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8. Wet granulation - Role of Binder
Provide cohesiveness that essential for bonding of the solid particles to form sago pearl.
Binders: water, ethanol and isopropanol; used either alone or in combination.
Binders improve the density and hardness.
Wetting is significant in the kinetics of granulation.
Particle size enlargement decreased as the binder content increased.
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9. Wet Granulators - Conventional
Cradle sieve: Low cost and quality and the productivity of pearl depend on human skill.
Strainer plate: Size is obtained by changing the strainer plate.
Single pot:
Processing, mixing, granulation and drying in single equipment.
Lumps formation (more binder) and cannot be broken before drying.
Difficult to process weak granulates (less binder) & Non linear scale-up.
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10. Wet Granulators - Conventional
Balling drum:
Factors - binder, rotational speed, surface roughness, drum size & filling degree, raw material size distribution.
Two plan - Pre & simultaneous mix.
High density & sphericity, less energy consumption & less maintenance, mass production.
Complexity in speed control
Low (less than 8 rpm) - slide
Optimum (8-14 rpm) - role
Fast (+14 rpm) - cataracting
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11. Wet Granulators - Conventional
Disc:
Parameters: bed moisture content, disc filling, disc diameter and angle of inclination.
Construction, Food processing, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, building material, ceramic, rubber and plastic product.
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12. Wet Granulators - Special
Low shear mixer & granulator:
Mixing - separate operation
Moist mass to a granulator.
Rotor bars oscillate and force the moist mass through the sieve screen.
Binder addition is critical :
More – strings formed (Idiappam)
Less – granules not formed
Drying time long, dissolved material can travel to the upper surface of granular bed.
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13. Wet Granulators - Special
High shear mixer:
Binder mixed into powders by impeller ( rpm).
Chopper break wet mass into granule ( rpm).
Mixing, massing, granulation in one equipment, short time, lesser binder, cohesive material can granulated.
Over wetting of granules leads to lumps formation.
Monitoring - particle scale up and end of process.
Factors: impeller speed, volume of binder, granulation time based on impeller speed.

14. Wet Granulators - Special
Fluidized bed:
Heated and filtered air is sucked through powders to fluidize and mix the powders.
Binder pumped through a spray nozzle over the bed of particles.
Single unit, reduce labour costs, no transfer losses, less time and it can be automated.
Initially expensive, bed cleaning is labour-intensive and time consuming.
Pharmaceutical, food stuffing, chemical coating.
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15. Wet Granulators - Special
Rotor granulator
Base plate rotates - centrifugal force keeps the moist mass at the edges of the rotor.
Velocity difference (rotor and static walls), upward flow of air around the rotor plate causes the mass to move in a toroidal motion leads to form spherical particles.
Coating and layering .
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16. Granulators - Advanced
Freeze Granulation Technology
Swedish Ceramic Institute.
Spraying a powder into liquid nitrogen and dried by sublimation.
Advantages:
Ball shape
Free flowing granules
Optimal homogeneity
Good granule density
Non-oxides
Solid granules no cavities
High yield
Low material waste.
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17. Granulators - Advanced
Steam Granulation Technology (SGT)
At STP, pure steam occupies 1,600 times the volume of an equal mass of liquid water.
Modified conventional wet granulation technique.
Steam – binder.
Uniformly distribution of powder particles, higher diffusion rate, better size formation, time efficient, environment friendly, no health hazards to operator.
Requires equipment for steam generation and transportation, requires high energy inputs, more safety measure required, not suitable for all binders.
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18. Granulators - Advanced
Thermoplastic Granulation Technology (TGT)
Use: pellets, granules and tablets by wetting and nucleation, coalescence, attrition and breakage.
Adding meltable binder in solid state at room temperature, but preferably melts in 50°C – 100°C.
No further addition of binder or water is required.
Time and cost effective, eliminates the liquid addition and drying steps, controlling and modifying the release of granules.
Binder melting point in
specific range can only used.
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19. Granulators - Advanced
Moisture Activated Dry Granulation
Moisture is used to activate granule formation without heat applied.
90% of granulation in pharmaceutical, food and nutritional industry.
Small amount of water (4%)
Particle size range of mm.
Time efficient, few variables, suit for continuous processing, less energy required, no larger lumps due to very small amount of water used.
High powder loading are difficult to develop.
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20. Granulators - Advanced
Moist Granulation Technique
MGT same as Moisture Activated Dry Granulation.
It involves binder activation by adding a minimum amount of liquid.
Excess of moisture present in the blend is removed by adding moisture absorbing material: Microcrystalline Cellulose (MCC).
Elimination of drying step.
It is applicable for developing a controlled release formulation.
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21. Granulators - Advanced
Thermal Adhesion Granulation Process
Adding very less amount of water or solvent.
powder and ingredients mixture heated at a temperature range from 30°C to 130°Cin a closed system.
Size can be obtained after cooling and screening.
Good flow properties and binding capacity, adequate hardness, utilizes less amount of water or solvent and drying step is not required, minimizes the dust generation during powder processing.
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22. Granulators - Advanced
Pneumatic Dry Granulation Technology (PDGT)
Wet granulation is unsuitable for moisture sensitive and heat sensitive powder particles and it is more expensive than dry granulation, relatively labour intensive, long processing time and large number of process steps.
Enables flexible modification of powder loading, disintegration time and granule hardness.
Produces porous granules with excellent compressibility and flowability characteristics.
Can achieve, high powder particles loading, excellent stability, stable end products, little or no waste of material.
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23. Granulators - Advanced
TOPO Technology
Granules contain at least one solid crystalline, organic acid and one alkaline or alkaline earth metal carbonate that reacts with the organic acid in aqueous solution to form carbon dioxide.
TOPO vacuum granulation involves granulation under vacuum to prevent uncontrolled chain reaction.
It produces granules with excellent hardness.
This granulation requires only a very small quantity of liquid to start the chain reaction.
Only pure water or water ethanol mixtures for granulation.
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24. Granulators - Advanced
Foam Granulation Technology (FGT)
Aqueous foam binder solution prepared by addition of aqueous solution (ethyl cellulose) and liquid binders.
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25. Granulators - Advanced
Foam Granulation Technology (FGT)
The foam binder processed in twin screw extruder, shears mixer granulator and fluidized bed granulator to produce the foam granules.
Less binder than the spray and wet granulation
The rate of addition of foam is greater than rate of addition of sprayed liquids.
No plugging problems since use of spray nozzles is eliminated and no over wetting.
Reduces drying time, uniform distribution of binder throughout the powder bed, reduce manufacturing time, less binder required.
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26. Granulators - Advanced
Continuous Flow Technology (CFT)
The CFT is a second generation granulation technology
No need of any liquid to start the chain reaction
The granulation is carried out in an inclined drum into which powder is fed at one end and granulate removed at the other end
The drum is rotated in such a way that, all the shear forces are eliminated
Produce up to 12 tons of granules every day with no need to add any solvents (acetone).
Less sensitive to humidity and high temperature, granules form extremely stable products, no solvent residues in the final products.
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27. Sizing of Particles
Difficulties in obtaining an adequate size and meeting the size specifications.
Challenging task in a sizing process is to attain the constant mass and size.
Considerations for better granule size:
Quantity of binder added to the powder
Mixing of powder and ingredients are same size
Wet milling produces uniformly sized wet granules
Good flow properties reduces the weight variation
Reducing dust reduces employee’s exposure
Operating parameters of the equipment.
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28. Conclusion Every technique has unique characteristics.
Ideal characteristics of granules: Uniformity, good flow and compatibility.
Selection depends on product quality, labour availability and their skills, processing time and cost.
In-depth knowledge of the processing techniques and their merits & demerits are required.
Methodical approach should be followed for selecting the suitable granulation process of sago pearls.
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29. References
Kaushal, K. K., 2012, “Pivotal role of sago serve in growth of tapioca based industry in Salem region of India,” Paper presented in the International Conference on Public Policy and Governance, IISC, Bangalore, India, Sep.4 - 6, 2012.
Raj Kumar, S. M., Malayamurthi, R., and Marappan, R., 2014, “Rolling and bouncing dynamics of particles in the inclined rotating bowl for sago sizing mechanism,” Powder Technology, 267,
Namdeo Shinde., Nagesh Aloorkar., Ajit Kulkarni., Bhaskar Bangar., Suyog Sulake., and Pratik Kumbhar., 2014, “Recent Advances in Granulation Techniques,” Asian J. Res. Pharm. Sci., Vol. 4, Issue 1,
Malcolm Summers., Michael Aulton., Dosage Form Design and Manufacture, Chapter 25, “Granulation,”
Wanassanan Chansataporn., and Montira Nopharatana., 2009, “Effects of binder content and drum filling degree on cassava pearl granulation using drum granulator,” Asian J. Food Agro-Ind., 2(04),
Anderzej Heim., Tadeusz Gluba., Anderzej Obraniak., EsteraGawot Mlynarczyk., and Michal Blaszczyk,, 2006, “The effect of wetting on silica flour granulation,” Physicochemical problems of mineral processing, 40,
Mohamed, A., Jamilah, B., Abbas, K. A., Abdul Rahman, R., and Roselina, K., 2008, “A review on physicochemical and thermo rheological properties of sago starch,” American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, 3 (4), 639 – 646.
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30. References
Anderzej Heim., Tadeusz Gluba., and Anderzej Obraniak, 2004, “Bed dynamics during drum granulation,” Physicochemical problems of mineral processing, 38,
Dr. Hintz, W., 2009, “Mechanical Process Engineering - Particle Technology Agglomeration - Size enlargement and Agglomeration,” Otto-Von -Guericke -University, Magdeburg.
Hema, V., 2003, “Mathematical Modeling of Dynamics of Granular Material in a Rotating Cylinder,” PhD Thesis, Cochin University of Science and Technology.
Anderzej Heim., Robert kazmierczak., and Anderzej Obraniak., 2004, “The effect of equipment and process parameters on torque during disk granulation of bentonite,” Physicochem. Probl. Miner. Process, 38,
Yadav, P., Chauhan, J. S., Kannojia, P., Jain, N. K., and Tomar, V., 2010, “A Review: On Scale-Up Factor Determination of Rapid Mixer Granulator,” Der. Pharmacia Lettre, 2(5),
Michael Stuer., Zhe Zhao., and Paul Bowen., 2012, “Freeze granulation: Powder processing for transparent alumina applications,” Journal of the European Ceramic Society, 32,
Sheth Vijay, P., Ranpura Vicky, D., Patel Vipul, P., Atara Samir, A., and Desai Tusharbindu, R., 2012, “Steam Granulation: Novel Aspects In Granulation Techniques,” An International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vol-3, Issue-3,
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31. References
Subhash, P. G., Srilatha, K. S., Ajay Kumar Bachupally., Madhusudhan Punnuru., Jamal Shariff Shaik., and Jayanth Kumar Reddy, G., 2011, “Emphasis on novel granulation technologies: an overview,” Indo American Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, 1(4),
Halle Pradeep, D., Sakhare Ram, S., Dadage Ketan, K., Birajdar Ganesh, O., and Raut Deepika, B., 2013, “A review on melt granulation technique,” J. Pharm. Phytother.,1:3,
Venkateswara Reddy., Navaneetha, K., and Venkata Ramana Reddy, K., 2014, “Process development and optimization for moisture activated dry granulation method for losartan potassium tablets,” Int. J. Pharm. Pharm Sci., Vol 6, Issue 6,
Rajesh Agrawal., and Yadav Naveen., April-June 2011, “Pharmaceutical Processing – A Review on Wet Granulation Technology,” IJPFR, 1(1),
Himanshu K. Solanki., Tarashankar Basuri., Jalaram H. Thakkar., and Chirag A. Patel., 2010, “Recent Advances In Granulation Technology,” International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Review and Research, Volume 5, Issue 3, Article-008,
Mahammed Athar A. Saikh., 2013, “A Technical Note On Granulation Technology: A Way To Optimise Granules,” International Journal of Pharm. Science and Research, Vol. 4(1):
Saikh Mahammed Athar Ali., 2013, “Updated insight on foam binder granulation,” International research journal of pharmacy, 4(9),
Gopal Sabu, Process of sago production, Salem, available at (accessed on January 12th, 2015)
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32. S. M. Raj Kumar, AP/MECH, EBETi; smr.mech@ebet.edu.in
Thank You
Query
S. M. Raj Kumar, AP/MECH, EBETi;