New Series 2000 Tablet Analyser

The Series 2000 Tablet Analyser, from NIR Technology, is the first in a new series of application specific NIR analyser for the pharmaceutical industry. The instrument is a Near Infrared Transmission analyser suitable for measuring coating thickness on tablets and tablet uniformity.

The Series 2000 is a diode array spectrometer with a Sample Transport Module that moves a sample cell in front of a light beam to allow 15 separate scans to be collected for each sample. For measuring coating thickness, the tablets are loaded into a 16 or 28mm thick cell which is then placed into the instruments sample cell holder. A motor and gear wheel drives the cell down and up, stopping in up to 15 separate locations along the 105mm long viewing window. NIR light passes through the cell and the light is transflected, a combination of transmittance and reflectance, through the tablets. NIR light is absorbed by the coating on the tablets. The thicker the coating the more NIR light that is absorbed. The analysis time for measuring coating thickness is less than 2 minutes.

For measuring Tablet Uniformity, a different sample cell is used. The tablets are placed individually into a spacer that holds between 10 and 20 tablets, depending on the size of the tablets. Each tablet is located over a whole in the spacer. When the spacer with loaded tablets is placed into the Squeeze Cell and loaded into the Series 2000 Sample Transport Module, tablets are scanned individually by passing light through each tablet and into the optics. The composition of each tablet is computed and stored in memory. The average results for up to 4 constituents and the standard deviations for all results are shown on the screen. By uploading the results file to a PC, the complete profile of for all tablets can be obtained.