Situation
Consumers increasingly expect the products as fully natural formulations, trying to decrease the use of synthetic excipients. At the same time, manufacturers aim for precise dosing, stability, and convenient dosage forms such as capsules, and this of course needs accurate capsule filling.
Many of the commonly used natural and functional ingredients like omega fatty acids, fat soluble vitamins, probiotics, and botanical oils are inherently oily or lipid-based, posing formulation and processing challenges.
Challenge
Incorporating oily ingredients into solid dosage forms presents several key challenges:
- Poor flowability and handling: Oils cannot be processed directly in standard powderbased manufacturing.
- Lack of compressibility: Oily actives cannot form stable capsules without suitable carriers.
- Stability issues: Oils are sensitive to oxygen, moisture, and temperature.
- Content uniformity risks: Uneven distribution of oil leads to dosing inconsistencies.
- Sensory challenges: Strong taste and odor negatively affect consumer acceptance.
Developing a stable, free-flowing, and processable powder from oily ingredients while maintaining a natural formulation is therefore a major challenge.
Solution
The use of CompactCel® MAB provides an effective and natural solution for converting oils into free-flowing powders suitable for solid dosage forms.
CompactCel® MAB is a natural absorbent system designed to:
- Incorporate high amounts of oil into a powder matrix
- Ensure homogeneous distribution of oily actives
- Maintain excellent flowability and handling properties
- Enable accurate capsule filling
By using a stepwise absorption process, oils can be uniformly integrated into CompactCel® MAB, resulting in a table and easy-tohandle powder.
This approach allows manufacturers to:
- Use simple and scalable capsule filling processes.
- Maintain a clean-label formulation.
Oil-Based Powder Prepared with CompactCel® MAB
Oily actives (e.g. hemp, Omega-3, vitamins, probiotics) were successfully incorporated into. CompactCel® MAB using high shear mixing, resulting in a homogeneous powder suitable for encapsulation.
Encapsulation trial details
- Aim: to evaluate the influence on fill weight and variability
- Equipment: GKF 705 (Syntegon)
- Capsules: HPMC hard capsules size 0
- Dosing disk thickness: fixed at 19.7 mm
- Tamping pin heights: varied 7, 10, 13, 16, 19 mm
Formulation Set 1
Ratio of 1:1, resulting in a total fill weight of 584 mg per capsule. The formulation contained 50 % CompactCel® MAB (preloaded with 25 % oil), corresponding to an oil content of 73 mg per capsule (12.5 % w/w).
Formulation Set 2
Ratio of 1:2, with the same total fill weight of 584 mg. The formulation contained 37.67 % CompactCel® MAB, corresponding to an oil content of 55 mg per capsule (9.4 % w/w). Encapsulation trials were conducted at varying machine parameters, including tamping pin height, powder bed height, and machine speed (RPM), to determine optimal processing conditions.
Key benefits
- Enables conversion of oily ingredients into free-flowing powders
- Supports clean-label and natural formulations
- Improves content uniformity and dosing accuracy
- Enhances stability and protection of sensitive actives
- Masks taste and odor of oils
- Allows use of standard capsule filling or tableting equipment
- Reduces need for complex softgel or liquid filling processes
- Provides robust and reproducible results
- Improves manufacturing efficiency and scalability
Results
Formulation Set 1
The results demonstrated that process parameters significantly influenced capsule weight uniformity. The optimal performance was achieved at a tamping pin height of 13 mm, yielding:
- Mean fill weight: 584 mg
- Relative standard deviation (% RSD): 3.75 %
Higher or lower tamping pin settings resulted in increased variability, with % RSD values ranging from 4.39 % to 10.63 %. In the nutraceutical industry a relative standard deviation (RSD) below 5 % of filled capsules is acceptable. The results of Set 1 (Ratio 1 : 1) showed a RSD of 3.75 %. This means a good powder flow in combination with the right process parameters was given to achieve the desired result.
Formulation Set 2
Formulation Set 2 exhibited improved flowability and reduced variability compared to Set 1. The best performance was observed at a tamping pin height of 16 mm, yielding:
- Mean fill weight: 563 mg
- Relative standard deviation (% RSD): 2.23 %
In the pharmaceutical industry a relative standard deviation (RSD below 3 % of filled capsules is acceptable. The results of Set 2 (ratio 1 : 2) showed a RSD of 2.23 %. This means a goodpowder flow in combination with the right process parameters was given to achieve the desired result.
Across all tested conditions, % RSD values ranged from 2.23 % to 5.59 %, indicating consistently better performance than Set 1.
Conclusion
CompactCel® MAB offers a simple, natural, and efficient solution for incorporating oily ingredients into solid dosage forms. By transforming oils into stable powders, it enables manufacturers to overcome key formulation and processing challenges while maintaining high product quality and consumer acceptance.
See the full brochure on CompactCel® MAB for Oily Ingredients in Dietary Supplements here
(click the picture to download the brochure)
Source: Biogrund, brochure CompactCel® MAB for Oily Ingredients in Dietary Supplements
