By Aiden ArmstrongWhen it comes to pharmaceutical tooling, the need for efficiency, effectiveness and precision is immense. Nothing can go wrong – the mass production of medicine on a scale as large as that of the pharmaceutical industry means that even a single equipment error can lead to medical complications in hundreds if not thousands of people, over the course of weeks and months.
Pharmaceutical tools, such as punches, dies, dosators and tamping pins have to undergo a certain kind of coating mechanism in order to prevent a number of issues, including corrosion and oxidization. This is especially important when combatting potential acids, through the use of deposed cations.
Applying these, however, requires the services of a specialized coatings expert like N2Bio, and the use of a high-quality, highly controlled coating technique, such as ion beam sputtering or ion beam enhanced deposition.
The Different Valid Coatings in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Commonly, only three coating techniques are typically used to ensure the successful and safe coating of a pharmaceutical tool. These include:
*Chemical Electroplating
*Physical Vapor Deposition
*Ion Beam Enhanced Deposition
What these all do is apply an extremely thin film of protective elements onto a pharmaceutical tool, including nickel, titanium nitride, chromium, boron, chromium nitride, or special engineered materials like diamong-like carbon and polytetrafluoroethylene, also known simply as Teflon, developed by Chemours.
As per Explain That Stuff, chemical electroplating involves the use of electrodes and electrolytes to work under a current, to make the electrodes split up the metal atoms in the electrolyte, and deposit them across the surface of the electrode.
PVD dissolves material into a fine vapor, and utilizes vacuum deposition to deposit it over a metallic surface.
In the end, the reason ion beam technologies are best for the job is because they offer the most flexibility and durability, including surface factors like morphology and crystallinity.
