Preventing clogged fluid nozzles in the spray gun and cleaning of the spray manifold is a common challenge in the tablet manufacturing industry. But with Thomas Processing’s patented Spray Bar, you can significantly reduce clogged fluid nozzles and reduce cleaning time, streamlining your coating process and minimizing downtime.
A History of Innovation in Tablet Coating
As an original innovator in pharmaceutical machinery, Thomas Processing has shown a commitment to excellence in tablet manufacturing for decades. Setting today’s industry standard in 1969, Thomas’s tablet coating machines revolutionized the tablet manufacturing industry with Accela-CotaⓇ coating systems, featuring our fully perforated drum design. With unmatched benefits, like unrestricted air flow and thermodynamic efficiency, our team of innovative engineers continue to design and develop new equipment and tooling for tablet coating, improving processes and operations with each advancement.
Improvements Lead to Industry Advancements
The Accela-CotaⓇ fully perforated drum design was an industry-leading innovation for many years, but we saw room for improvement. We looked at common challenges our customers face and designed solutions for smoother operations.
One of the areas of improvement we focused on was functionality. Our team realized that the tablet coating industry needed a solution to prevent product build-up. That’s when we designed and manufactured the Thomas Spray Bar.
Thomas Processing Brings You the Thomas Spray Bar
The patented Thomas Spray Bar is a fully integrated spraying solution designed to offer easy calibration, external gun positioning on Flex models, and streamlined sanitation. Equipped with Schlick ABC™ anti-bearding nozzles to prevent product buildup, the Thomas Spray Bar (TSB) provides the ultimate option in coating versatility, making it a suitable solution for a wide range of coating materials.
The TSB’s unique design allows the operator to remove a fluid nozzle from the spray gun while the spray bar is primed with solution flowing in recirculation back to the solution tank. It takes less than 10 minutes to remove the TSB from the coater, remove the clogged fluid nozzle, clear the clog, reassemble the spray gun, and restart the process. The modular design significantly reduces the number of parts, minimizing cleaning time.
Thomas’s revolutionary air flow design keeps your tablet production process moving forward, resulting in minimized downtime. Air flow is introduced into the bed from behind and above the anti-bearding nozzles. It flows into the bed parallel to the spray and exits underneath the tablet bed. This specific configuration was chosen to ensure all air passes through the tablets, transferring all the heat to the tablets before exiting.
All Thomas production tablet coating machines feature the TSB. Our spray bar’s solution delivery system is engineered to provide a consistently better performance compared to conventional manifolds, resulting in easily validated, repeatable tablet coating processes.
With the TSB, you get:
- Innovative external gun positioning
- Easy cleanability and minimum downtime
- A streamlined sanitary design
- Hardware that meets GMP requirements
- Efficient product changeovers
- Lightweight sections for easy handling
- Minimal surface areas to prevent tablet entrapment
- Indexable features for repeatable rotation settings
Thomas Processing Spray Systems can be configured for independent pattern air control or combined atomizing and pattern air control. You can also retrofit a TSB for combined or independent control of pattern air pressure and fan width.
Thomas Spray Bar Retrofit Options
We’re committed to combining traditional tablet coating best practices with new innovations. That’s why our spray bar is retrofittable to our Accela-CotaⓇ tablet coating system, giving you the opportunity to raise the quality of your tablet coating process. You can easily benefit from the functionality of a TSB that complements your existing Accela-CotaⓇ machine, thanks to our mounting brackets designed with square spray collars.
The TSB retrofit includes:
- Schlick gun components
- Sanitary tri-clamp connections with “O” ring seals
- Schlick solution and air delivery components
- Sanitary tri-clamp solution feed and recirculation connections
- Tool-less gun inserts for quick disassembly and service
- Options for pattern air control and fan width
- Indexable mounting hardware for repeatable positioning
Thomas Spray Bar Configurations and Upgrades
We’ve designed and manufactured our Accela-CotaⓇ models to support the TSB, along with other configuration and upgrade options. Here is a list of configuration and upgrade options for a variety of Accela-CotaⓇ tablet coating systems:
- Models
- 48”S, 60”S, and 66”S with square spray collars and Spray IV-B stand-alone spray systems
- 48”D, 60”D, and 66”D with square spray collars and spray drawer system
- All Continuous Coater Systems
- 24” and 36” COMPU-Lab coating systems with spray drawer system
- Spray System Upgrades
- Spray Pro stand alone spray system includes the solution pump, flow meter and control for atomizing and pattern compressed air. The Spray Pro is controlled through an intuitive graphical user interface.
- I/P and Air Volume Booster regulator for systems with COMPU-COAT control features, including the Accela-Spray drawer and Accela-Spray 4B
- Manual regulator and gauge for Accela-Spray 4B
COMPU-COAT controls are available for total process automation. Customized solution preparation systems can also be built and fully integrated with your coating system.
Choose Thomas for the Right Tablet Coating Spray Bar
As industry leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, Thomas’s team of experienced engineering professionals can help you select the right machine for your tablet coating processes. We offer total design flexibility to handle a wide range of spray options for your TSB, such as active drug sprays, clear and color film coatings, sugar solutions, functional coatings, and organic solvent formulations.
With a streamlined design that supports a manageable cleaning process, efficient product changeovers, and repeatable rotation settings for accurate positioning, there is no better coating solution than the Thomas Spray Bar. Contact us today to learn more.
