Explaining Different Types of Tablet Coating Equipment

Choosing the right type of tablet coating equipment for your needs is a daunting task. Thomas Processing explains the process of tablet coating and your machinery options.

The Process of Tablet Coating

The process of tablet coating makes solid dose pharmaceuticals more effective and easier to ingest. While tablet coatings have the same general functions, like masking the odor and taste and prolonging shelf life, there are several types of tablet coating processes that coat surfaces differently and affect the result of the medication in unique ways:

Sugar Coating

The process of sugar coating tablets is used to mask medication taste and provide the tablet with an attractive color. Sugar coating includes a variety of processes like sealing, sub-coating, syrup coating, coloring, and polishing.

Film Coating

The process of tablet coating with sugar is time-consuming, so it’s more common in the tablet coating industry to use film coating. The process involves spraying a solution that includes polymer, pigments, and plasticizer into a rotating tablet bed to form a thin, uniform film on the tablet’s surface.

Active Drug Layering

Active drug layering involves depositing the drug on the substrate’s surface. Then, an active substance is layered onto the tablet’s core using a standard coating pan. Control-release tablets typically use powder coating processes for pharmaceutical production.

Extended Release

The process of tablet coating for extended-release tablets uses polymer that’s applied to the oral medication to protect it from stomach acid. The polymer ensures the drug takes full effect.

Our Tablet Coating Equipment

At Thomas Processing, we have a variety of state-of-the-art production tablet coating machines suitable for a variety of tablet coating processes:

The FLEX 200®

Thomas’s FLEX 200® is a fully integrated, recipe-driven tablet coating system with exchangeable drums. It’s equipped with a variety of high-performance features like external gun positioning, auto unload, and the patented Thomas Spray Bar® with Schlick ABC technology. The Flex 200® is suitable for film, functional, drug layer, and sugar coating materials.

The FLEX 500®

The FLEX 500® increases your tablet coating productivity while maintaining the quality of your products. Manufactured with its own innovative exchangeable drum design, Thomas’s Flex 500® lowers your operating costs and gives you better batch control. The Flex 500® is suitable for a wide range of coating materials like aqueous, organic solvents, film, modified release, active, and sugar.

The FLEX1000®

Thomas’s Flex 1000® also features the patented Thomas Spray Bar® with external gun positioning functionality. This revolutionary tablet coating equipment provides a superior solution for coating. It’s suitable for film, functional, sugar, and drug layer coating.

The FLEX CTC®

Featuring 22 spray nozzles and our proven ACCELA® technology in a 24-inch diameter (610 mm), fully perforated drum, the FLEX CTC® achieves the same high performance demonstrated in our batch coaters but in less time. It also offers the industry’s leading product volume flexibility of 100 to 1500+ kg/hr.

The ACCELA CTC 500®

A smaller version of the Flex-CTC, the ACCELA CTC 500® is equipped with state-of-the-art improvements that benefit the pharmaceutical industry on a larger scale. With shorter drums compared to the FLEX CTC and an impressive throughput of 500 kg/hr, the ACCLEA CTC 500® is a perfect fit for high-quantity prescriptions and over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen and acetaminophen.

ACCELA COTA® Systems

One of the most significant advantages of our ACCELA COTA® systems is their cleanability. Making these systems and their parts easy to clean saves you time and increases your productivity. Cleanability also reduces the chance of cross-contamination in your various operations.

Accela-Cota® systems offer features like:

All-rounded interior
Easy access to the interior from the front and sides
Full WIP with tankless skid and recipe control
Ability to clean with the spray bar in place or removed

Thomas Ancillary Equipment

At Thomas, we also provide high-quality ancillary equipment to support your tablet coating processes:

Industry-Leading Innovators in Tablet Coating Equipment

As an industry leader in tablet coating equipment, Thomas Processing made a commitment to excellence decades ago. The nature of the pharmaceutical industry calls for persistent improvements and upgrades—at Thomas, we use that motivation to push ourselves toward the highest levels of quality and productivity. You can count on us to take the initiative and hold ourselves to a higher standard.