Humidity control for pharmaceutical processing

22/05/2024

The sturdy moist absorption of a vast majority of pharmaceutical products jeopardises their physical and biochemical structure.

High ambient humidity has been considered to hazard for production efficiency and product quality.

In the pharmaceutical processing context, high humidity causes pill decay, unproportional pill compression, drug sensitivity changes, curdling, caking and agglomeration of chemical compounds in the form of powder during the mixing process in drug production.

One more example is augmentation of moist absorbed in galetin, which is the main component of medicine soft capsule. To be specific, net dry weight of galetin is 0.79% within conditions of RH=10%, but it surges 11.4% corresponding to conditions of RH=90%. Obviously, the dry weight of galetin escalate tremendously in accordance with realistic ambient condition.

Besides, high humidity indirectly demolishes organic ingredients insomuch as the surge of microorganism dwindle the shelf life.

The table below represents appropriate temperature and humidity thresholds for various applications of pharmaceutical processing as accumulating from practical projects for HVAC contractor.

Applications	Temperature	Humidity
Pharmacies of Infusion	27^oC	30%
Pharmacies of hard gelatin capsule for Penicillin antibiotics	27^oC	5 - 15%
Pharmacies of soft gelatin capsule	24^oC	35 - 40%
Pharmacies of cough syrup	24 - 27^oC	30 - 40%
Pharmacies of effervescent tablets	32^oC	15%
Pharmacies of tablets	24 - 27^oC	10 - 30%
Pharmacies of pavements for tablets	27^oC	5 - 30%