The pharmaceutical industry is an important part of China's national economy — an industry combining traditional and modern industries and integrating the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Its main categories include: chemical raw materials and preparations, Chinese medicinal materials, prepared Chinese herbal pieces, Chinese patent medicines, antibiotics, biological products, biochemical drugs, radiopharmaceuticals, medical devices, sanitary materials, pharmaceutical machinery, pharmaceutical packaging materials and pharmaceutical commerce. The pharmaceutical industry plays a very important role in protecting and improving people's health, enhancing quality of life, supporting family planning, disaster relief and epidemic prevention, military supplies and preparedness, and promoting economic development and social progress.
Pharmaceuticals are a special kind of commodity whose quality is directly related to human life and health. From the transportation, warehousing and transfer of pharmaceutical raw materials, to every step of the production process, to the quality and packaging of finished drugs, strict control must be exercised — a reliable and effective measure to ensure drug quality and medication safety. With socio-economic development and the continuous improvement of people's material and cultural living standards, people have increasingly higher requirements for medical quality, and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly aware of quality control in every step of drug production. The 2017 new edition of the Pharmacopoeia and strict FDA and GMP certification requirements also impose higher demands on drug quality testing.
Water is the medium of chemical reactions, and many reactions do not proceed without it. For solid preparations with poor chemical stability, a liquid film is adsorbed on the solid surface due to humidity and moisture, and the drug degrades in the liquid film — examples include vitamin C tablets, acetylsalicylic acid tablets, vitamin B12, penicillin salt powder injections and ferrous sulfate. In general, the degradation rate of solid drugs affected by moisture is proportional to relative humidity: the higher the relative humidity, the faster the reaction. Besides causing chemical reactions in drugs and raw materials, excessive moisture also makes raw materials and drugs prone to mildew and deterioration, seriously affecting drug quality and shelf life. Therefore, moisture should be strictly controlled during the transportation and warehousing of pharmaceutical raw materials, as well as during production and storage.
There are many methods for determining moisture content. Moisture analyzers commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry include loss-on-drying (loss-on-heating) moisture analyzers — mainly halogen moisture analyzers and far-infrared moisture analyzers — and Karl Fischer moisture analyzers: volumetric Karl Fischer moisture analyzers and coulometric Karl Fischer moisture analyzers.
The drying method, also called the "loss-on-drying method", uses physical analysis to determine moisture content by exploiting the effect of heating on moisture volatilization to dry out the moisture in the material. The traditional and more common moisture determination method is the oven method, in which the material sample is dried in an oven, weighed before and after drying on an electronic balance, and the moisture value is calculated manually... Learn more about the loss-on-drying principle
Based on different user needs, we offer the following solutions:
Halogen moisture analyzers and far-infrared dark-field heating moisture analyzers
Choose the instrument that suits your needs, or contact VicoMeter customer service directly for advice.
The Karl Fischer method (volumetric and coulometric), proposed by Karl Fischer, is the most water-specific and accurate chemical method; recent improvements raised accuracy and range, making it the standard for many substances...Learn More About the Principle of Karl Fischer Moisture Analyzers
Based on different user requirements, VicoMeter offers the following solutions:
Karl Fischer Trace Moisture Analyzer (Coulometric)
Karl Fischer Moisture Analyzer (Volumetric)
Choose the instrument that suits your needs, or contact VicoMeter customer service directly for advice.
An online moisture analyzer continuously monitors and displays product moisture; in pharma, microwave and infrared dominate. Installed on site, it enables real-time monitoring, process refinement via historical data, and rapid response to moisture alarms...Learn More About the Principle of Online Moisture Analyzers
Based on different user needs, we offer the following solutions:
NIR Online Moisture Meter
Online Microwave Moisture Analyzer
Choose the instrument that suits your needs, or contact VicoMeter customer service directly for advice.
A portable moisture analyzer is essentially an instrument for the rapid testing of material moisture. Its overall accuracy is inferior to that of laboratory moisture analyzers, but it is more reliable and accurate than the touch and experience of a "veteran". A calibrated portable moisture analyzer can quickly determine the moisture content of a sample on the job site; if a material's moisture content is found to exceed the warning level, it is sent to a professional laboratory for analysis and confirmation with a laboratory moisture analyzer. Thanks to their portability and fast testing, portable moisture analyzers are widely used in incoming material inspection, production sites and spot checks in the pharmaceutical industry.
In the pharmaceutical industry, the moisture content of various raw materials, intermediates and finished products must be determined. Since the samples to be tested come in various forms — solid, liquid and gas — finished drugs, for example, include tablets, suppositories, freeze-dried products and certain active substances, and moisture exists in different forms in the samples, such as free water and crystal water, while the drug ingredients contained in the samples can also affect measurement. Therefore, when determining the moisture content of drugs, different determination methods should be selected according to the physical and chemical properties of the drugs.
The loss-on-drying method is suitable for testing samples that contain no volatile substances other than water and samples that are insoluble or difficult to dissolve in organic solvents, including solids, powders, granules, viscous materials and fluids. In general, a halogen moisture analyzer with higher heating efficiency is preferred, featuring fast heating, uniform heating, high efficiency, energy saving and environmental protection. For temperature- and light-sensitive samples, such as samples with high sugar content, a far-infrared moisture analyzer should be selected, whose heating is relatively gentle and uniform — a traditional heating method.
The Karl Fischer method is suitable for testing samples whose side reactions produce no water and which neither consume nor release iodine themselves. In general, for hydrocarbons, oils, alcohols, halogenated hydrocarbons, phenols, lipids and ethers, a coulometric Karl Fischer moisture analyzer is selected; for organic acids, inorganic acids , acidic oxides, acid anhydrides, acids, alcohols, esters, stable hydroxyl compounds, acetals, ethers, hydrocarbon anhydrides, acid halides, halides, peroxides, nitrogen compounds and sulfur compounds, a volumetric Karl Fischer moisture analyzer is selected.
Here, VicoMeter summarizes several tips on how to choose between a coulometric and a volumetric Karl Fischer moisture analyzer:
The volumetric method is suitable for liquid and solid samples; the coulometric method is suitable for liquids and gases.
When the sample moisture content is below 1000ppm, the coulometric Karl Fischer moisture analyzer is ideal; when the sample moisture content is above 1000ppm, the volumetric Karl Fischer moisture analyzer is ideal.
If multiple samples are to be tested and chemical reactions may occur between different samples, the volumetric method is required.
Because of complex samples, the pharmaceutical industry generally uses volumetric moisture analyzers.
Since every company's samples are different, we recommend that you do not make a decision hastily. Please contact VicoMeter staff, and we will develop the most suitable testing solution for you based on your actual situation.
Weighing (scale) equipment is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, such as in drug R&D, material inbound and outbound management, raw material production and packaging, drug preparation, inspection, and the production and packaging of preparations. All equipment related to drug production must comply with GMP. Weighing equipment is one of the keys to quality and hygiene safety control in the drug production process, and weighing accuracy throughout the production process is critical, directly affecting the final quality of drugs. If needed, VicoMeter has been deeply engaged in the pharmaceutical industry for many years and can provide users with a full range of weighing solutions.
Pharmaceutical wastewater contains many organic pollutants that are toxic and harmful to microorganisms, such as halogen compounds, nitro compounds, organic nitrogen compounds, and dispersants or surfactants with bactericidal effects. Most organic pollutants in pharmaceutical wastewater are substances that are difficult to biodegrade, such as halogen compounds, ether compounds, nitro compounds and certain heterocyclic compounds. A considerable portion of pharmaceutical wastewater has very high colority, and colored wastewater itself indicates that the water body contains specific pollutants.
Therefore, water quality analyzers are especially important for pharmaceutical companies. In pharmaceutical processes and production wastewater treatment, a pharmaceutical water quality analyzer is the "yardstick" for water quality assurance in the pharmaceutical industry. Since the parameters to be tested vary with the drug composition of different companies, VicoMeter provides users with the following water quality testing solutions:
Multi-parameter water quality analyzers (capable of measuring dozens of conventional water quality parameters such as COD, ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, heavy metals and inorganic salts);
Dozens of single-parameter water quality analyzers such as COD analyzers, ammonia nitrogen analyzers, total phosphorus analyzers, total nitrogen analyzers, residual chlorine analyzers, colority analyzers and chlorine dioxide analyzers;
Customized dedicated water quality analyzers tailored to the needs of different enterprises, with parameters freely selectable in any permutation and combination.
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