title: Porosity measurement of solid pharmaceutical dosage forms by gamma-ray transmission.
abstract: The aim of the present work is the determination of porosity in tablets by using the gamma-ray transmission technique. Tablet dissolution depends on some inherent characteristics of the manufacturing process, such as compression force, tablet volume, density and porosity, nature of excipients, preparation methods and its physical-chemical properties. Porosity is a measure of empty spaces in a material and can be determined by various techniques. In this paper, we propose the use of a gamma-ray transmission technique to obtain the porosity of experimental formulation of tablets. The results of porosity were compared with those obtained by using conventional methodology (density and mercury intrusion). The experimental setup for gamma-ray transmission consists of a gamma-ray source of (241)Am (photons of 59.6 keV and an activity of 3.7 × 10(9)Bq), an NaI(Tl) scintillation detector, collimators and a standard gamma-ray spectrometry electronics. Our results suggest that the gamma-ray transmission technique is a powerful tool for non-destructive porosity quantification of solid pharmaceutical forms and presents smaller errors than those obtained with conventional methodologies.
authors.affiliation: Universidade de Sorocaba, UNISO, Campus Seminário, Caixa Postal 578, Avenue, Dr. Eugênio Salermo, 100, Centro, 18035-430 Sorocaba, SP, Brazil. jose.oliveira@prof.uniso.br
authors.forename: José Martins
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Newton
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Andréo Filho
authors.forename: Marco Vinícius
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Chaud
authors.forename: Tatiana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Angiolucci
authors.forename: Norberto
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Aranha
authors.forename: Antonio César Germano
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Martins
mesh_terms: D004304:Dosage Forms; D005720:Gamma Rays; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D016062:Porosity
chemical_list: D004304:Dosage Forms; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations