Coating apparatus – Edible base or coating type – Tumbling particulate work
Patent
1983-10-06
1987-03-17
McIntosh, John P.
Coating apparatus
Edible base or coating type
Tumbling particulate work
118 20, 118 24, B05C 500
Patent
active
046498559
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention is concerned with a device for coating a drageeing material in the form of formed bodies, such as tablets, pellets, capsules and the like, the device comprising a kettle rotatable about an axis, a device for spraying the formed bodies with a drageeing suspension while the formed bodies are moved in the kettle and a suction device for sucking off air and drageeing dust through at least a part of the drageeing material, the axis of rotation of the kettle being tilted in such a manner that the drageeing material passes through a three-dimensional rolling movement in which the ascending material is present, on average, at a greater distance from the axis than the material running off.
Especially in the production of medicaments but, for example, also in the production of sweets, suitable base bodies, for example tablets, pellets, granulates and the like, which are hereinafter generally referred to as formed bodies, are frequently covered with a suitable, non-toxic substance, for example sugar, shellac or gum arabic, and often also coloured. At present, as coating materials there are frequently also used polymers, for example methyl cellulose or acrylic resin lacquer. The coated formed bodies are called dragees and, in the case of a very thin coating, are frequently also called film dragees or, in English literature, coated tablets.
High requirements are demanded, especially in the case of medicinal dragees. The coating applied serves, for example, to provide unpleasantly tasting medicaments with a pleasantly tasting covering. Furthermore, in many cases, by appropriate choice of the drageeing material, it is possible to control whether the dragee dissolves in the stomach, in the small intestine or only in the large intestine. Especially in the case of coated tablets, the applied covering is very thin, for example on a tablet of about 9 mm. diameter there are only applied 10 mg. of coating. It is readily apparent that, under such circumstances, the coating must be uniformly thick and smooth in order that the coating fulfills its purpose. Possible roughnesses are, in addition, not only undesirable because of the undesirable optical impression which they give but they can also lead to problems in the case of printing thereon or removing the dragees from a container.
In spite of these high requirements, the dragees are to be produced in the most economic manner possible, which has resulted in ever larger drageeing kettles. The layers of the dragees moving about in a kettle thereby became ever thicker and this gave rise to problems, on the one hand, because of the thereby increased friction of the formed bodies and, on the other hand, because such thick layers of drageeing materials are comparatively difficult simultaneously or alternatingly to spray and to dry with a current of air introduced in a suitable manner.
In order to avoid these problems, a number of proposals have already been made which essentially extend to the shape of the drageeing kettle and to the tilt of its axis of rotation, as well as to the guiding of the current of air. A good survey of the possible shapes of drageeing kettles is given in Federal Republic of Germany Patent Specification No. 27 31 351. Whereas the drying air in the case of the older drageeing kettles is frequently directed by pipes passing into the kettle on to the surface of the drageeing material and also again sucked out therefrom via pipes which also pass into the kettle so that the air only flows over the surface of the filling of drageeing material, in this publication there are also described a number of solutions to the problem in the case of which the current of air is passed through at least a part of the drageeing material. For this purpose, various shapes of immersion pipes were suggested which, for example, as so-called "dip lances", project into the drageeing material present in the drageeing kettle. The orifice region present in the drageeing material is perforated and frequently divided up into two zones which are separated from one another
REFERENCES:
patent: 3357398 (1967-12-01), Gross
patent: 3834347 (1974-09-01), Motoyama et al.
patent: 3874092 (1975-04-01), Huttlen
Boehringer Mannheim GmbH
McIntosh John P.
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