Fine powders often tend to agglomerate due to van der Waals forces between the particles. These forces can be reduced significantly by covering the particles with nanoscaled adsorbates, as shown by recent experiments. In the present work a quantitative statistical analysis of the effect of powder flow regulating nanomaterials on the adhesive forces in powders is given. Covering two spherical powder particles randomly with nanoadsorbates we compute the decrease of the mutual van der Waals force. The dependence of the force on the relative surface coverage obeys a scaling form that is independent of the used materials. The predictions by our simulations are compared to the experimental results. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.