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US 11,077,024 B2Granted
Systems and methods for high humidity curing within tablet coating system
AssigneeSpecGX LLC
InventorGreg Bengard
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The disclosure encompasses systems and methods for performing high temperature and high humidity curing of tablets using air flow delivered from a recirculating air handler to a pan coater of a tablet coating device. The recirculating air handler may be integrated into a preexisting tablet coating device so that the air flow may be delivered by the preexisting air handler or by the recirculating air handler as desired.
Claims17
A tablet coating system comprising:
- a pan coater operable to apply one or more coatings to a tablet;
- and
- a recirculating air handler operable to supply high humidity air flow to the pan coater, the recirculating air handler comprising:
- an inlet duct operable to receive exhaust air from the pan coater;
- a humidifier to introduce moisture into the exhaust air in an amount resulting in an exit air having a relative humidity of up to about 94%;
- a vent operable to release air from the recirculating air handler to the atmosphere via a vent valve, wherein the vent valve is opened as needed to maintain a pressure within the pan coater of at least 0.15 inches of water column below atmospheric pressure;
- an exit duct operable to deliver the exit air to the pan coater;
- one or more configurable valves;
- and
- a control system comprising a mode control operable to coordinate the opening and closing of the one or more to switch an air supply of the pan coater from a flow-through air handler to the recirculating air handler.
7 more elements
A tablet coating system to apply one or more coatings to a tablet, the tablet coating system comprising:
- a pan coater operable to apply one or more coatings to the tablet;
- a recirculating air handler to supply a humid air flow to the pan coater, the recirculating air handler comprising:
- an inlet duct operable to receive exhaust air from the pan coater;
- a humidifier to introduce clean steam into the exhaust air in an amount resulting in an exit air having a relative humidity of up to about 94%;
- a vent to release air from the recirculating air handler to the atmosphere via a vent valve, wherein the vent valve is opened as needed to maintain an air pressure within the pan coater of at least 0.15 inches of water column below atmospheric pressure;
- and
- an exit duct operable to deliver the exit air to the pan coater;
- a flow-through air handler to supply a low humidity air flow to the pan coater, wherein the low humidity air flow has a relative humidity less than the humid air of the recirculating air handler;
- one or more ducts and one or more configurable valves, wherein the one or more configurable valves is configured to:
- cut off flow through the recirculating air handler and direct the air flow from the flow-through air handler to a supply duct of the pan coater and from an exhaust duct of the pan coater to an exhaust stack;
- or cut off flow from the flow-through air handler and direct the air flow from exit duct of the recirculating air handler to the supply duct of the pan coater and from the exhaust duct of the pan coater to the inlet duct of the flow-through air handler;
- and
- a control system operable to control the operation of the recirculating air handler and/or the one or more configurable valves.
10 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.