Excipients in Tablets: What They Do and How They Affect Tablet Performance
In tablet manufacturing, excipients are often perceived as inactive or secondary ingredients. In practice, excipients are critical functional components that determine whether a tablet can be manufactured consistently, packaged efficiently and scaled without recurring defects. From a contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) perspective, excipients are not optional additions but structural elements of the tablet system.
This article explains what excipients do in tablets and how they affect tablet performance, focusing on manufacturing behaviour, quality risks and scalability rather than chemical theory.
This article explains what excipients do in tablets and how they affect tablet performance, focusing on manufacturing behaviour, quality risks and scalability rather than chemical theory.
Why excipients are essential in tablet production
Most active ingredients used in food supplements are not suitable for direct compression.
They may flow poorly, resist bonding, fracture under pressure or absorb moisture from the environment. Attempting to compress such materials without excipients typically leads to unstable tablets, excessive defects or production downtime.
Excipients are introduced to transform a mixture of actives into a processable system. From a manufacturing standpoint, excipients determine how the blend behaves during filling, compression, ejection and packaging.
Excipients are introduced to transform a mixture of actives into a processable system. From a manufacturing standpoint, excipients determine how the blend behaves during filling, compression, ejection and packaging.
- Fillers and diluents: defining tablet size and structureFillers, also referred to as diluents, are used to add bulk to the formulation when the active dose alone is insufficient to form a tablet of practical size. Beyond increasing volume, fillers strongly influence compressibility and mechanical strength.Fillers affect:
- tablet dimensions
- compression force requirements
- powder flow into the die
- Binders: creating internal tablet strengthBinders are responsible for holding particles together during and after compression. They enable the formation of a coherent tablet structure that can withstand handling and packaging.In manufacturing practice, binders directly influence:
- tablet hardness
- friability
- risk of capping or lamination
- Disintegrants: enabling tablet breakup during useDisintegrants are added to promote tablet breakup after ingestion. Their role is functional rather than structural, but they interact closely with hardness and compression parameters.
Disintegrants: enabling tablet breakup during use
Disintegrants are added to promote tablet breakup after ingestion. Their role is functional rather than structural, but they interact closely with hardness and compression parameters.
From a production standpoint, disintegrants affect:- disintegration time
- sensitivity to compression force
- balance between strength and performance
- Lubricants and glidants: controlling friction and flowLubricants and glidants are essential for maintaining smooth production. They reduce friction between the powder blend and tooling surfaces and improve flow characteristics.In manufacturing, these excipients influence:
- sticking to punches
- ejection behaviour
- tooling wear
Excipients and common tablet defects
Many tablet defects discussed earlier in this cluster are directly linked to excipient balance.
Capping and lamination often indicate insufficient binding or uneven density distribution. Sticking may point to inadequate lubrication or moisture interaction. Dusting, particularly common in amino acid tablets, frequently reflects brittle excipient systems that cannot absorb mechanical stress.
Capping and lamination often indicate insufficient binding or uneven density distribution. Sticking may point to inadequate lubrication or moisture interaction. Dusting, particularly common in amino acid tablets, frequently reflects brittle excipient systems that cannot absorb mechanical stress.
Excipients in amino acid tablets
Amino acids present specific challenges due to their crystalline structure and poor compressibility. Excipients play a central role in making amino acid tablets manufacturable.
In these formulations, excipients influence:
In these formulations, excipients influence:
- abrasion resistance
- dust generation
- tablet surface integrity
Scale-up considerations in contract manufacturing
Excipients that perform adequately in pilot batches may behave differently at higher speeds and volumes. Scale-up introduces changes in dwell time, shear forces and material handling intensity.
CMOs therefore evaluate excipient systems not only for laboratory performance but also for robustness under commercial production conditions. Reformulation after market launch is costly and disruptive, making early excipient decisions critical.
CMOs therefore evaluate excipient systems not only for laboratory performance but also for robustness under commercial production conditions. Reformulation after market launch is costly and disruptive, making early excipient decisions critical.
Excipients define tablet manufacturability
Excipients are not passive fillers. They define how a tablet is formed, how it behaves during production and how it performs during use.
Well-designed excipient systems:
Well-designed excipient systems:
- improve compression stability
- reduce defect risk
- support scalable manufacturing
FAQ: Excipients in Tablet Manufacturing
No. Excipients are functional components that enable powder flow, compression, tablet strength and controlled disintegration. Without appropriate excipients, many active ingredients cannot be manufactured into stable tablets at all.
In many cases, yes. Defects such as capping, lamination, sticking or dusting are often linked to excipient imbalance rather than compression settings alone. Adjusting excipient type or proportion is a common corrective approach in tablet manufacturing.
Scale-up changes compression speed, dwell time and mechanical stress. Excipients that perform adequately in small batches may not tolerate higher throughput or longer production runs, which is why excipient systems are evaluated for robustness, not just lab performance.
Yes. Disintegrants directly influence tablet breakup, while binders, lubricants and compression force indirectly affect disintegration behaviour. Tablet performance depends on the balance between these components rather than on a single excipient.
In contract manufacturing, excipients are evaluated alongside the active ingredients for their impact on powder flow, compression behaviour, defect risk and scalability. Selection focuses on creating a formulation that remains stable and repeatable under commercial production conditions, rather than optimised only for small-scale trials.