Characterization and Rheological Classification of Powdered Products to Improve Productivity in the Packaging Process

Authors

Vera Orezzoli, Alvaro

Rojas, Meliza Lindsay

Lescano, Leslie

Sánchez-González, Jesús

Linares, Guillermo

Abstract

The objective of this work was to make an improvement proposal for the packaging process of powder products of a company that produces instant powders as supplements. by characterizing the rheological properties of 10 products, each with a different formulation depending on the target consumer. As results, it was obtained that the lowest angle of repose (AR) was obtained by the product coded as M8 (26.1 ± 1.3°), while M4 presented the lowest flow velocity (VF) with 22.3 ± 0.8 g/s. Apparent density (DA) and compacted density (CD) were also determined, finding that the densest product is M4 (0.69 ± 0.00 g/mL), while M5 showed less tendency to compaction, obtaining a Carr Index (CI) of 6.06 ± 1.31 and Hausner Index (HI) of 1.06 ± 0.01, finding significant statistical differences in all tests. M6 showed the lowest flow values for all the tests (AR = 43.9 ± 1.1°, VF = 0 g/s, IC = 23.99 ± 2.06 and IH = 1.32 ± 0.04), so the proposal was based on the estimation of the improvement that could be caused by the use of magnesium stearate (EM) as an additive. The productivity of the current formula and the estimated productivity of M6 were then determined based on the production data provided by the company, and a productivity increase of 219% related to the estimation of the improvement of the flow through the use of the additive was obtained, bringing with it economic savings of up to 6.31 soles per hour per man.