Tablet Press Machine - Work and Application

What is a press? Press is a machine that presses any material into a specific design, shape and size. It has dies and punches. The die gives the specific design (shape) and punch presses to give size to the product. Press has a very wide field of application. One of them is pharmaceutical industry.

Press Machine in Pharmaceutical Industry-

Press machines are used in the pharmaceutical industry to make tablets. Press machines can be used to manufacture tablets of drugs. The mechanical device that compresses powder into tablet of uniform weight and size is known as press machine. A tablet machine can produce about 250000 tablets an hour.

How to form a tablet?

To form a tablet, a fine powdered material of pre determined amount must be poured into the cavity formed by two punches and die. After this the punches must be press against each other with a great force to fuse the powdered material.

Working of Tablet Press Machine-

The tablet press machine is also known as Tablet Machine. Since the principle of compression is used by the machine to make tablets, the machine is also called as Tablet Compression Machine. Operation of the tablet press machine is as follows-

First of all the bottom punch moves down the die i.e. lowered upto a depth. The fine powdered material is fed into the cavity by a lead screw and the hopper charger. The amount of powder is equal to or may be less than the depth of the bottom punch. If the level of the powder increases then a scrapper is provided which removes extra amount of material. Once the feeding of powdered material is done the upper comes in contact with the powder. The upper punch covers the die.

The next operation is the compression operation. The large force that needs to be applied to compress the material inside the die is done by the high pressure compression rolls (rollers). The force the powdered material to fuse together into tablet.

After compression operation is done the bottom punch is raised above to eject out the tablet. In other words it’s just a spill off process.

Types of Tablet Press Machines-

The development of the machine industry has led to different types of tablet machines. They are classified into two categories. They are Single Punch Tablet Machines and Rotary Tablet Press Machines.

In order to increase the production and minimise the time required to manufacture tablets rotating tablet press were invented. The high speed tablet press machines today are rotary tablet press. They have a rotating turret comprising of a number of pumches. As the turret rotates the punches come in contact with cams that control their vertical position. The rotation, the position of dies and punches are easily customised depending upon the requirements of the tablet size and shape.

Hence the tablets that we come across in our day to day lives are manufactured by simple process of compression by "Tablet Press Machines". Tablets may be of anything like drug or any other material; they are manufactured in the same simple way.