The aim of this work is to contribute to the investigation of cohesive pharmaceutical powders regarding their surface energy both in a qualitative and quantitative way. Binary mixed and co-milled powder mixtures of the cohesive drug meloxicam and two excipients, alginic acid and calcium alginate, were prepared to study the effect of three different drug amounts on the cohesion and energy to break an avalanche.
Finally, the origin of cohesive forces and surface energetic heterogeneity of raw substances and mixtures was discussed based on mapping the surface energy profiles in detail.