Partially and fully perforated pan coaters are among the most relevant types of equipment currently used in the process of coating tablets. The goal of this study was to assess the performance differences among these types of equipment employing a factorial design. This statistical approach allowed the simultaneous study of the process variables and verification of interactions among them. The study included partially-perforated and fully-perforated pan coaters, aqueous and organic solvents, as well as hypromellose-based immediate-release coating. The dependent variables were process time, energy consumption, mean weight of tablets and process yield. For the tests, placebo tablets with a mean weight of 250 mg were produced, divided into eight lots of two... |