Application > Pharmaceutical

Spray drying and fluidized bed techniques have been widely applied in the pharmaceutical field for decades. As in other areas, spray dryers are used to manufacture excipients and synthetic actives, as well as new ingredients of natural origin. The fact that spray dryers make the simplest and most used technique for microencapsulation of pharmaceutical actives possible makes the number of products obtained by spray drying surprising. This, added to the availability of functional polymers in this area, can lead to producing pharmaceutical actives in the form of microcapsules resistant to environmental factors or masking odor and taste (barrier function), pH-dependent (gastro-resistant) and even controlled release (release slow).

Fluidized beds are part of the list of essential equipment in the pharmaceutical industry and are used for different unit operations, such as mixing, drying, granulation and coating. One of the biggest advantages of this equipment is that these unit operations can all be carried out sequentially in product batches without the need for transfer between equipment. However, more classically the beds are used for drying and granulation operations. In the case of coating, the beds are very applicable to solid forms such as tablets and capsules and have the advantage of a short process time.

Some application examples of spray dryers for pharmaceuticals are:

• Drying drugs (active) and their salts;
• Drying solid excipients (e.g., lactose SD);
• Drying biotechnological products, such as antibiotics, hormones, vaccines, and others;
• Drying medicinal plant extracts and nutraceuticals;
• Microencapsulation of pharmaceutical actives for different functionalities.

Some application examples of fluidized beds for pharmaceuticals:

• Mixing and drying solid excipients (e.g., microcrystalline cellulose);
• Drying drugs and their salts;
• Drying medicinal plant extracts and nutraceuticals;
• Microencapsulation of pharmaceutical actives for different functionalities;
• Granulation of powders and powder mixtures;
• Coating of powders, granules and tablets/capsules.