Application case | Application of GY1000 in moisture content in pharmaceuticals

Drugs are special commodities. If there are quality problems, they will not only fail to achieve therapeutic effects, but may also endanger the health of users. In serious cases, they may even be life-threatening or leave serious sequelae. Therefore, the country attaches great importance to drug safety issues. Abnormal water content in tablets can affect tablet quality and efficacy. Especially for some drugs, if the moisture content is too high, it will seriously affect their stability, physical and chemical properties, effectiveness and validity period, and taking such drugs will seriously endanger health and life safety. Therefore, quantitative analysis of moisture has been  listed as one of the basic items for drug inspection and is an important quality indicator. According to the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, a variety of pharmaceuticals require moisture determination. The conventional pharmaceutical moisture content using the drying method has the disadvantage of taking a long time to measure and being cumbersome to measure. It is a fast and simple method to measure the moisture content based on the principle that water absorbs in the near-infrared band.

As a leader in domestic spectroscopy companies, Optosky is committed to solving the application pain points of the industry. The GY1000 online infrared moisture meter launched has achieved good results in the measurement of moisture content in grain, distiller's grains, tobacco and other industries, providing a fast and convenient method for moisture measurement. The principle is that water shows strong absorption characteristics for some specific wavelengths of infrared light. When the material is irradiated with infrared light of these specific wavelengths, the water contained in the material will absorb part of the infrared light energy. The more water it contains, the more it will absorb. Therefore, the reduction in reflected light can be measured to calculate the moisture content of the material. Povidone and microcrystalline cellulose are widely used in pharmaceuticals, mainly in solid preparations. A customer's povidone and microcrystalline cellulose samples were tested and good results were obtained, which provides application solutions for the moisture content detection of the tablets.

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the optical path of the instrument.

1. Product features

(1) Non-contact, non-destructive, real-time and dynamic online testing system;

(2) Replaceable ultra-long-life tungsten halogen light source with higher luminous efficiency;

(3) Use PbS infrared detector to improve temperature stability;

(4) 4-wavelength 8-beam technology ensures more accurate and stable results;

(5) High-speed brushless motor ensures more accurate signal sampling results;

(6) The high-definition touch screen displays real-time measurement data and can store measurement data within 30 days;

(7) Split design, one controller can connect 4 probes;

(8) Sturdy industrial design, dustproof and waterproof, adaptable to various industrial sites.

2. Application of moisture content in pharmaceuticals

Figure 2 Sample Pictures.

Figure 3 Instrument software displays results.

Dry the two medicinal powder samples (povidone K30, microcrystalline cellulose) respectively, and record the voltage change characteristic value X during the drying process, and the corresponding weight, and then calculate the corresponding moisture content after complete drying, and measure the moisture content of the sample again by fitting the curve.

Figure 4 Povidone K30 moisture content characteristic value curve.

Figure 5 Microcrystalline cellulose moisture content and characteristic value curve.

Measurement results

After the above analysis, during the modeling process of povidone K30 and microcrystalline cellulose, it is consistent with the theoretical trend that the characteristic values gradually increase as the moisture content decreases. During the segmented fitting process, the fitting degrees of the segmented curves were all above 0.97, indicating a good linear relationship and in line with actual theory and application. Compared with the drying method, the measurement error is smaller.

3. Summary

GY1000 adopts the principle that water absorbs in the near-infrared region and can be widely used to measure the moisture content of materials. Compared with traditional manual methods, it has the characteristics of fast measurement speed and convenient testing. Therefore, GY1000 has a wide range of application scenarios in the field of pharmaceutical moisture measurement. If you are interested in the above solutions or have other moisture measurement application scenarios, or want to know more solution design details, please call us for consultation.