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Available online at ajdhs.com 

Asian Journal of Dental and Health Sciences 
Open Access to Pharmaceutical and Medical Research 

Copyright  © 2022 The  Author(s): This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial use provided the 

original author and source are credited 
 

 

 

An Overview on Formulation and Evaluation Aspects of Tablets 

Neeta Kushwaha1, Anushree Jain1, Prateek Kumar Jain1, Basant Khare1*, Yashwant Singh Jat2 

1 Adina College of Pharmacy, ADINA Campus Rd, Lahdara, Sagar, MP, 470001 

2 Sardar Patel College of Pharmacy, Villege-Bangai, Gulharia Thana, Gorakhpur, UP 273013 

Article Info: 
_______________________________________ 
Article History: 

Received 08 Sep 2022      
Reviewed 10 Nov 2022 
Accepted 29 Nov 2022 
Published 15 Dec 2022 

_______________________________________ 
Cite this article as:  

Kushwaha N, Jain A, Jain PK, Khare B, Jat YS, An 
Overview on Formulation and Evaluation 
Aspects of Tablets, Asian Journal of Dental and 
Health Sciences. 2022; 2(4):35-39 

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22270/ajdhs.v2i4.23   

_______________________________________

*Address for Correspondence:   

Basant Khare, Adina College of Pharmacy, 
ADINA Campus Rd, Lahdara, Sagar, MP, 470001 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Nothing in this world is stable and ever accepted. Change is the requirement of nature for the sake of 
adaptability. However, the pharmaceutical world is also not far off from this change. Technical 
advancement in pharma world also leads to the development of new dosages forms. This leads to the 
replacement of the older dosages forms with the newer once. But for the tablet dosages forms this 
replacement is substituted with modifications. On the top of it the availability of numerous evaluation 
parameters provides these new modifications in tablets a clear cut demonstration idea. Tablets are 
defined as solid unit dosage form of medicaments intended for oral use. They became most popular as 
they were easy in preparation compared to any other type of dosage forms. But the major drawback 
exists in its manufacturing. If any minor problem occurs during their manufacturing then the whole 
batch of the unit should be discarded. It is necessary to avoid any sort of errors during its manufacturing 
and as a result evaluation of tablets is very important before dispatching of a batch. In the present study, 
we discussed about the manufacturing techniques and evaluation tests for tablets. 

Keywords: Tablets, Solid unit dosage, Compression method, Indian pharmacopoeia, Manufacturing, 
Evaluations 

 

Introduction 

Oral solid dosage forms are administered for attaining a local 
therapeutic effect in the mouth, throat and digestive tract or 
for a systemic effect in the body after oral or gastrointestinal 
absorption. For preparing oral solid dosage forms, active 
ingredients and suitable excipients can be milled, dried, 
encapsulated, blended, granulated or tableted. Various oral 
solid dosage forms such as tablets, capsules, lozenges, 
powders and granules etc. have been widely used for 
delivering active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) due to their 
convenience and consequent patient compliance1. Tablet is the 
most widely used dosage form among the total available 
dosage forms because it is simple for administration, lower 
price of production and elegance2. Tablets are a solid dosage 
form of medicaments with or without excipients which are 
prepared by compression method. According to the Indian 
Pharmacopoeia tablets are solid, flat or biconvex unit dosage 
form of a medicament alone or medicament along with 
excipients prepared by compressing technique. They may vary 
in its size shape and weight depending on the medicament and 
its mode of administration. Tablets are said to be most widely 
used conventional dosage forms due to its variety of 
advantages and 70% of the medicaments were dispensed in 
tablet forms. Most of the medicaments can be processed into 
tablets but there are some exceptions like medicaments with 
low density characters, hygroscopic and the medicaments 
which were not possible to administer3-7. Tablet formulations 
which provide a unit dose which is either immediate drug 

release or modified release or is taste masked are some of the 
most popular and extensively explored aspects of oral solid 
dosage form development. Tablet manufacturing (apart from 
the direct compression method) is a multistep process and 
hence is a complex process with many potential variables. The 
processes and parameters associated with tablet manufacture 
are still not fully understood. Extensive research is ongoing to 
develop understanding in all areas of the tablet manufacturing 
process. Numerous advances have been introduced to improve 
material attributes, engineering of manufacturing equipment 
and development of efficient analytical techniques. Qualities 
by design-based formulation development approaches have 
been applied to reduce the variability in the processes to 
develop robust tablet dosage forms. In addition, new raw 
materials have been deployed to improve manufacturability 
and functionality of tablet formulations. These include the 
modification of existing excipients with enhanced purity or 
physical properties (e.g. particle size) and co processing with 
other materials to improve their performance in 
manufacturing processes. Moreover, development and use of 
multi-functional materials provide lean manufacturing 
opportunities with significant economic impact. The last few 
years have seen the development of novel tableting 
technologies which improve machine performance. These 
advances in machine design aim to overcome limitations 
associated with conventional manufacturing approaches such 
as the denaturation of thermolabile active ingredients, 
material wastage, multiple processing steps and elevated costs 
due to protracted processing time, labour and maintenance of 

                       Open Access                                                                                                                                                                                                          Review Article                                                                           

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http://dx.doi.org/10.22270/ajdhs.v2i4.23


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equipment. In addition, lean and continuous manufacturing 
concepts have been employed to ensure rapid, safe and 
efficient manufacturing operations. Developments relating to 
engineering and machine design have also been implemented 
in the pharmaceutical industry. The concept of quality by 
design has been applied to enhance productivity by the 
application of novel process analytical technologies that track 
quality attributes of formulations. These also can document 
data as a function of input variables (materials and process) in 
a real time manner1. This manuscript aims to provide a 
comprehensive summary of numerous manufacturing 
technologies and evaluation parameters plays a major role to 
release any dosage form into the market. 

Advantages 

 Unit dosage forms with dose precision, 

 Least content variability, 

 Administration of accurate amounts of minute doses of a 
drug is possible, 

 Economical of all oral dosage forms as its production 
doesn’t requires additional processing steps, 

 Easy transportation, 

 Sustain release of a drug can be achieved through enteric 
coating, 

 Medicaments with bitter taste can be masked with coating 
technique (Sugar coating), 

 Tablet dosage form is stable when compared to all oral 
dosage forms. 

Disadvantages 

 Administration of drugs is not easy in case of children, 

 Drugs with slow dissolution is not acceptable for tableting 
with good bioavailability, 

 Medicaments with low density characters and amorphous 
in nature are difficult to compress,  

 Hygroscopic nature of drugs is not acceptable for tablet 
compression. 

Tablet manufacturing techniques8-12  

Direct compression 

The direct compression method is by far the most effective 
technique of tablet manufacturing. This technique is least 
tedious and hence is preferred over the other techniques. 
Direct compression is the simplest and most economical 
method for the manufacturing of tablets because it requires 
less processing steps than other techniques such as wet 
granulation and  roller compaction. However, most 
pharmaceutical active ingredients cannot be compressed 
directly into tablets due to lack of flow, cohesion properties 
and lubrication. Therefore they must be blended with other 
directly compressible ingredients to manufacture satisfactory 
tablets. 

Wet granulation 

Wet granulation is a process of using a liquid binder to lightly 
agglomerate the powder mixture. The amount of liquid 
required to be properly adjusted, as over-wetting will cause 
the granules to be too hard and under-wetting will cause them 
to be too soft and friable. Aqueous solutions have the 
advantage of being safer to deal with solvent-based systems 
but may not be suitable for drugs which are degraded by 
hydrolysis. 

Dry granulation 

Dry granulation requires drugs or excipients with cohesive 
properties. Dry granulation is simpler than wet granulation, 
therefore the cost is reduced. This process is often used when 
the product to be granulated is sensitive to moisture and heat. 
Dry granulation can be conducted on a tablet press using 
slugging tooling or on a roll press called a roller compactor. 
Dry granulation often produces a higher percentage of fine 
granules, which can compromise the quality or create yield 
problems for the tablet. Steps-by-step tablet manufacturing 
processes which are being utilized by various manufacturers 
are enlisted in Table 1. Evaluations of these tablets are being 
carried out by using various response variables. Both 
preformulation and post formulation parameters are being 
evaluated to cement the effectiveness of formulated 
preparations.

 

Table 1: Steps of tablet manufacturing processes 

Wet granulation Milling and mixing of drugs and excipients. Preparation of binder solution. Wet massing by addition of 
binder solution or granulating solvent. Screening of wet mass followed by drying of the wet granules. 
Screening of dry granules. Blending with lubricant and disintegrant to produce running powder, 
Compression of tablet 

Dry granulation Milling and mixing of drugs and excipients, Compression into slugs or roll compaction, Milling and 
screening of slugs and compacted powder, Mixing with lubricant and disintegrant, Compression of tablet 

Direct compression Milling and mixing of drugs and excipients, Compression of tablet 

Nanonization Involves size reduction of drug to nanosize by milling the drug using a proprietary wet-milling technique. 
The nanocrystals of the drug are stabilized against agglomeration by surface adsorption on selected 
stabilizers, which are then incorporated 

Cotton candy process Involves the formation of matrix of polysaccharides by simultaneous action of flash melting and spinning. 
This candy floss matrix is then milled and blended with active ingredients and excipients after re-
crystallization and subsequently compressed to FDT. 

Mass extrusion Involves softening the active blend using the solvent mixture of water soluble polyethylene glycol, 
methanol and expulsion of softened mass through the extruder or syringe to get a cylindrical shape of the 
product into even segments using heated blade to form tablets. 

Sublimation Inert solid ingredients that volatilize rapidly like urea, camphor ammonium carbonate, ammonium 
bicarbonate, and hexamethylenetetramine were added to the other tablet ingredients and the mixture is 
compressed into tablets. The volatile materials were then removed via sublimation, which generates 



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porous structure. 

Moulding Water-soluble ingredients with a hydro alcoholic solvent is used and is molded into tablets under 
pressure lower than that used in conventional tablet compression. 

Freeze drying/ 
Lyophilization 

The drug is dissolved or dispersed in an aqueous solution of a carrier. The mixture is poured into the 
wells of the preformed blister packs. The trays holding the blister packs are passed through liquid 
nitrogen freezing tunnel to freeze the drug solution. Then the frozen blister packs are placed in 
refrigerated cabinets to continue the freeze drying. Finally the blisters are packaged and shipped. 

Disintegrant 
addition 

Involves the addition of superdisintegrants in optimum concentration to the formulation to achieve rapid 
disintegration/dissolution 

 

Advances in tablet manufacturing processes 

Tablet manufacturing routines involving advanced granulation 
approaches, hot melt extrusion, extrusion/spheronization, 
injection molding, spray drying, spray congealing, 
coprecipitation and nanotechnology-based approaches have 
been developed over a number of years to produce robust 
tablet formulations with improved performance 
characteristics. 

Evaluation of tablets 

• Appearance, 

• Size and Shape, 

• Organoleptic properties, 

• Uniformity of thickness, 

• Hardness, 

• Friability, 

• Drug Content Uniformity, 

• Weight Variation Test, 

• Wetting time, 

• Water Absorption Ratio, 

• In vitro Dispersion Time, 

• In vitro Disintegration Test, 

• In vitro Dissolution Studies, 

• Two set of apparatus, 

• Apparatus-1, 

• Apparatus-2. 

Appearance 

Appearance is the first most required quality for the 
acceptance of tablet. General elegance and its identity play a 
major role for the consumer acceptance. Acceptance of the 
appearance of batches of the tablet has been done based on 
the measurement of the following factors like size, color, 
shape, presence or absence of odor, taste etc13-18.  

Size and shape 

Size and shape of a tablet has been determined by its 
thickness. Size and shape of table plays an important role in its 
patient compliance as the size of the tablet increases it is not 
much easier for its administration. Micrometer is the devise 
which is used to determine the thickness of a tablet. It can be 
acceptable if the batch falls within the •±5% of standard 
deviation. 

 

 

Organoleptic properties 

Color should be distributed uniformly without appearance of 
any signs of mottling. Colour of the tablet should be compared 
with the standard colour for comparison. 

Uniformity of thickness 

To determine the uniformity of thickness random selection of 
tablets has to be done from each and every batch and need to 
measure its thickness independently. If the thickness of any 
single tablet varies then the batch containing that batch will 
not be dispatched into market (Figure 1). 

 

Hardness 

The ability of a tablet to withstand for mechanical shocks is 
known as hardness. Pfizer hardness tester is the instrument 
which is used to determine the hardness of tablet. It is 
expressed in kg/cm2. Take three tablets from each batch and 
hardness should be determined and the selection of tabled 
should be done randomly. Then the mean and standard 
deviation values should be determined.  

Friability 

Roche friabilator is the equipment which is used for the 
determination of friability. It is expressed in percentage. Note 
down the initial weight of the tablets individually (W initial). 
Tablets are placed in a plastic chamber which revolves at 25 
rpm and they are subjected to fall from a height of 6 inches in 
the friabilator for about 100 revolutions. Then measure the 
weight of the tablet (W final) and observe any weight 
difference before tablet and after the friabilator processing 
(Figure 2). Limits: loss in weight less than 0.5 to 1% of the 
initial weight of the tablet should be considered as acceptable 
limits. Percentage of friability is calculated as: 

F={(W initial)- (W final)/ (W initial)}×100. 

 



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Drug content uniformity 

Initially weigh the tablet and then powder it. Now the 
powdered tablet is transferred into a 100 ml volumetric flask 
and adds 0.1 N HCl up to mark. Now filter the solution and 
discard first few ml of filtrate. Take 10 ml of filtrate should be 
taken into a 50 ml volumetric flask and add 0.1 N HCl up to the 
mark and analysed spectrophotometrically at 274 nm and 
234.5 nm. The concentration of the content of the drug 
(μg/ml) was calculated by using the standard calibration 
curve of the respective drug. 

Drug content is calculated by using the below formula 

Concentration of the drug in (μg/ml) × 100 × 50/10 × 1000 

Weight variation test 

Random selection of 20 tablets from each batch should be 
done and note down the weight of the tablet individually and 
check for any variation in its weight. According to US 
Pharmacopeias small variations in the weight is negligible and 
can be accepted. Below is the acceptable limit of percentage 
deviation in weight variation.  

Wetting time 

This method was performed to determine the wetting time of 
a tablet. A piece of tissue paper which is folded twice is kept in 
a Petri dish containing 6 ml of water and place the tablet on 
the tissue paper. Observe the time taken for complete wetting 
of the tablet. Following procedure should follow three times 
(three trial) for each batch and standard deviation is also 
calculated from the obtained results. 

Water absorption ratio 

A piece of tissue paper which is folded twice is kept in a Petri 
dish (i.d.=6.5 cm) containing 6 ml of water and place the tablet 
on the tissue paper. Observe the time taken for complete 
wetting of the tablet. Thus wetted tablet was weighed. Now 
the water absorption ratio R is calculated using the formula 

R=100 × Wa –Wb/Wb 

Wb is the weight of the tablet before absorption, Wa is the 
weight of the tablet after absorption, 

Following procedure should follow three times (three trial) for 
each batch and standard deviation is also calculated from the 
obtained results. 

In vitro dispersion time 

Dispersion time of a tablet is determined by placing a tablet in 
6 ml of 6.8 pH phosphate buffer and note down the time taken 
for complete dispersion of tablet. Following procedure should 
be done for three tablets from each batch and in vitro 
dispersion time is calculated. Standard deviation time is also 
determined from the obtained results. It is expressed in 
seconds. 

In vitro disintegration test 

Disintegration is defined as the process of breakdown of tablet 
into small particles. Disintegration time of a tablet is 
determined by using disintegration test apparatus as per IP 
specifications. Place each tablet in each 6 tubes of the 
disintegration apparatus a then add a disc to each tube 
containing 6.8 pH phosphate buffer. The temperature of the 
buffer should maintain at 37±2°C and run the apparatus raised 
and lowered for 30 cycles per minute. Note down the time 
taken for the complete disintegration of the tablet without any 
remitants (Figure 3). 

 

Conclusion 

Tablet manufacturing and its evaluation has become the 
backbone of pharmaceutical research. From the various data 
sources it could be concluded that tablets have got uniqueness 
and power of adaptability. The tablets have shown vast 
changes in the last few decades or so both in manufacturing 
and evaluation. The advances in the evaluation techniques 
have proven to be both economical and time saving. From the 
number of manufacturing and evaluation parameters available 
the scope for the researchers also enhances and makes it 
possible for tablets to perfectly cement its place in this ever 
changing drug world. 

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https://doi.org/10.22270/ijmspr.v8i3.56
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-3659(01)00520-X
https://doi.org/10.1081/DDC-100104320
https://doi.org/10.3797/scipharm.0912-04
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-5173(03)00144-3
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-5173(03)00144-3

