The Influence of Film Coating on Pellet Properties

Abstract

There are numerous reasons for which film coatings are applied to pellet formulations; for example, controlled release, taste masking, and improved stability. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of pellet shape on the deposition of film coatings in a fluid-bed process by monitoring the pellet shape as a function of the film thickness formed. Eight pellet batches were used, of which four were spherical visually, and the other batches can be described as ovoids, dumbbells, long dumbbells, and cylinders. The average coat thickness of the pellets assessed by cross-section measurements did not appear to be influenced by the initial shape of the pellets. The fluid-bed process, however, had an impact especially for those pellets that had an aspect ratio greater than 1.5. The change in the pellet shape during film coating could only be monitored effectively employing a three-dimensional shape factor. Significant changes in shape occurred at the beginning of the coating process up to approximately the first 15 min, after which the shape remained constant.

Influence of Chitosan Crosslinking on Bitterness of Mefloquine Hydrochloride Microparticles Using Central Composite Design

“…Although various taste masking techniques such as the addition of sweeteners and flavors,5 coating with polymers,6 adsorption to ion‐exchange resin,7, 8 and chemical modifications such as the use of insoluble prodrugs9, 10 have been tried, microencapsulation was the most preferred technique 11, 12. Each technique has its own disadvantages.…”

Design and Optimization of Mefloquine Hydrochloride Microparticles for Bitter Taste Masking

“…In order to achieve an acceptable palatability, the addition of flavors or sweeteners is limited and may not be efficient enough to mask the bitter taste of drugs, requiring the use of technological processes (4)(5)(6). A number of taste-masking approaches have been described in the literature, including the use of cyclodextrin (7), ion exchange resin (8,9), film coating (10), viscosity modification (11) and melt granulation (12). Among the various techniques, microencapsulation has often proved to be the most successful in reducing the bitterness of bitter active pharmaceutical ingredients because it is simple, economic and advantageous (13).…”

Physicochemical and dissolution profile characterization of pellets containing different binders obtained by the extrusion-spheronization process

“…According to Podczeck, Rahman, Newton (1999), a pellet should present values of 1.0 for aspect and up to 1.1 for sphericity. Chopra et al (2002) considers that this value may reach up to 1.2. None of the formulations studied here conformed to these values, and results of more than 1.2 were obtained for both parameters.…”