Tablets are the most common dosage forms for oral drug delivery. High production rates (more than 1.000.000 tablets per hour) are possible, they can be designed in a wide range of shapes, sizes and colours for identification and they can be developed in a wide range of types, such as immediate release, modified release, chewable and orally disintegrating tablets. However they are relatively demanding upon the physical properties of the compression mix, which must flow evenly and must compact into robust tablets at high speeds.
To give the required properties of flow and compaction a number of techniques are used to form the compression mix, of which the most common are: