A review of factors affecting electrostatic charging of pharmaceuticals and adhesive mixtures for inhalation

• Charging of pharmaceutical inhalation powders depends on a combination of many interrelated factors.
• Controlling the charge of inhalation powders is crucial in the development of dry powder inhaler products.
• More controlled studies are justified to increase our understanding in charging.
• Efforts to optimize the charge of drug and carrier particles to maximize DPI performance are warranted.

Pharmaceutical powders are typically insulators consisting of relatively small particles and thus they usually exhibit significant electrostatic charging behaviours. In the inhalation field, the measurement of electrostatic charge is an imperative stage during pharmaceutical formulation development. The electrostatic charge is affected by the interplay of many factors. This article reviews the factors affecting the electrostatic charging of pharmaceutical powders with a focus on dry powder inhalations. The influences of particle resistivity, size distribution, shape distribution, surface roughness, polymorphic form and hygroscopicity, as well as the effects of moisture uptake, environmental conditions, pharmaceutical processing (i.e., milling, sieving, spray drying and blending), and storage on the electrostatic charge behaviours of pharmaceuticals, with focus on inhalation powders, were reviewed. The influence of electrostatic charge on the performance of dry powder inhaler formulations in terms of drug content homogeneity, the passage of drug through the inhaler device, drug–carrier adhesion/detachment, and drug deposition on the respiratory airways were discussed. The understanding gained is crucial to improving the safety, quality, and efficiency of the pharmaceutical inhalation products.

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