(76b) Application of X-Ray Tomograpny to the Description of Single Granules

X-ray tomography (XRT) has widely been used in medical imagery since it was first discovered in the 1960s and 1970s. However its potential in the area of powder technology has only started to be realized recently. This research aims to gain a deeper understanding of the granulation process using XRT as the main tool to look at the single granule scale in order to relate process and formulation parameters to product properties. XRT was chosen as the method to carry out this analysis because of its non-destructive nature, limited specimen preparation and relatively high resolution (< 4 microns) compared to other techniques. A method was developed to interpret XRT data in the form of radial distributions of greyscales in the granule as an indication of structure, hence providing a new way of describing the output images from XRT analysis. The method was tested for sensitivity and reproducibility and then used to investigate structural differences between granules manufactured under different experimental variables.