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When it comes to tablet coating machine, many manufacturers in the pharmaceutical and food industries will focus on the following two points: First, the equipment should be as flexible as possible to adapt to batch changes in order to respond quickly and flexibly to the changes of customer needs and dynamic market trends; second, operators prefer equipment with a high degree of automation to ensure consistent product quality and shorter processing times.
When the production batch flexibility is large, conventional coating machines can only adapt to larger or smaller batches by changing the coating drum, which is a very time-consuming task. Of course, there are also some brands of coating machines, and a single coating drum can achieve a small range of batch adjustments. However, even so, the quality is ensured by manual intervention in the production process. The new generation of SENIEER’s perforated coaters can achieve coating rates of 10% to 100% per batch through the same coating drum. Moreover, all parameters of the coating process can be adjusted fully automatically.
The tablet coater has a GMP-compliant built-in wall design, which provides a strict separation of technical and production areas.
The role of tablet coatings is to make the tablet easier to swallow, protect the tablet from light, air and humidity, and mask taste. In addition, coatings are used to control the release rate of the drug in the body.
The range of tablet coaters is capable of coating all types of tablets in a fully automated manner, suitable for all batch sizes. After the equipment operator calls the preset recipe and process parameters on the man-machine interface, the equipment can run automatically. Such as the height or angle of the atomizing nozzle from the bed, as well as parameters such as process exhaust air, it is no longer necessary to manually adjust and reset.
During the coating process, the parameters are continuously monitored and automatically adjusted according to the recipe. The operator does not need to be present at all times, and has more time to complete other work tasks.
Since all manual intervention is eliminated in the coating process, this highly automated coating machine provides companies with absolutely reproducible results and the best assurance of process control. For example, sampling can be performed directly without stopping the coating process and opening the device.
Sonar System Measures Loading And Bed Inclination
The key to the tablet coater’s fully automatic parameter adjustment during the coating process lies in the sonar system: sonic sensors continuously measure the entire tablet bed to obtain production information, which in turn determines batch loading rates. The inclination of the tablet bed, which varies with the rotational speed of the coating drum, can also be measured in the same way.
Automatic Telescopic Boom And Self-Adjusting Movable Nozzle Allow 10% To 100% Variable Batch Size
SENIEER’s new perforated coating cartridges allow ultra-precise spray coating of any batch size from 10% to 100% loading rate, thanks to real-time data from a sonar system and a newly developed retractable spray gun arm. The spray gun arm has a three-point telescopic mechanism, which can automatically adjust the height or angle of the atomizing nozzle from the tablet bed without interrupting the coating process. The telescopic length of the spray gun arm ensures that the sprayed droplets of the coating liquid can be sprayed on the tablets exactly according to the spray height (the distance between the nozzle and the tablet bed) set by the formulation, even if the batch size is very small.
Efficient Coating And Drying Process
Drying is an important step in the tablet coating process, starting when the coating liquid is sprayed. The temperature and flow of the inlet and exhaust air are critical to the efficiency of the coating liquid spray and drying process and are related to the correct air flow trajectory and batch size. Otherwise, it would be nearly impossible to achieve near-loss-free spray coating and fast drying. In addition, it is very important to regulate the air humidity – to prevent the product in the coating drum from becoming too wet, causing the tablets to stick together.
Auxiliary Equipment Of The Tablet Coater Plays An Important Role In The Intake, Exhaust And Cleaning Processes
The tablet coater has a bypass design to regulate the supply of process air. Depending on the batch size, the negative pressure generated inside the coating drum changes accordingly. By stabilizing the air volume, the air is directed to the automatic exhaust damper. These shutters can be opened individually or continuously in a controlled manner, allowing process air to pass directly through the tablets. Therefore, the high-efficiency coating and drying efficiency of the coating machine shortens the process time (usually controlled within 1 to 3 hours depending on the type of product) and reduces energy consumption at the same time.
Continuously Open Flaps Tightly Control Air Flow And Path, Allowing For Precise Coating And Drying According To Batch Size
Under the premise of precisely controlling the air volume in the coating drum, the coating liquid can coat any batch of products between 10% and 100%. In other words, without the coating liquid being sprayed on the tablet, the system will not spray dry and the tablet will be ejected. At the same time, because the automatic adjustment of the spray gun arm can realize the high-precision spray process, the loss of coating liquid is also greatly reduced. Depending on the application, the TP R Optima coater can save up to 60% of material compared to other coating methods.
Detects Clogged Nozzles And Automatically Clears Faults
SENIEER’s newly developed coating technology includes a system that automatically detects and clears clogged nozzles. The risk of clogging, although very low in practice, increases with the viscosity of the coating liquid. Downstream of the peristaltic pump, there is a load cell for weighing the incoming liquid. If the weighing unit detects that liquid is no longer flowing from one of the nozzles, the coater will first attempt to unblock the blocked nozzle by creating a maximum pressure. If clearing is not possible, then individually configured mechanisms come into play: depending on the product being produced, the system can selectively continue the coating and issue an alarm, or interrupt the coating process immediately.
Automatically Detects And Clears Clogged Nozzles
GMP Compliant In-Wall Design Is Avaiable
The tablet coater is designed to meet GMP standards. All product-contacting parts inside the coater are wash-in-place (WIP) washable and easy to disassemble, so cleaning validation is easy. Also, there are no dead zones where product residue builds up and leads to cross-contamination. The design of the gun arm specifically excludes these critical points due to its extendable and retractable construction.
The in-wall design of the coater allows for strict separation of the grey area and production areas in the clean room. If the equipment needs to be repaired, it can be carried out directly in the technical room without entering the clean room, so there is no need to decontaminate the clean room after the repair. Batches that are being processed can continue to be processed after maintenance work has been completed.
Advanced Sensors And Actuators Take Production Automation To A New Level
The new perforated coating cartridges from SENIEER combine very high flexibility, excellent product quality and a previously unattainable level of tablet coating automation. The gun arm and its three-point extension mechanism are patented.
However, the system still allows manual adjustment of individual parameters if required. The range of tablet coaters is available in 7 different sizes for laboratory product development scale as well as pilot and mass production scale. In particular, this machine is ideal for CROs, CMOs and CDMOs that need to run multiple batch sizes on a single production line.