When we say “capsule filling machine”, it usually refers to a type of pharmaceutical production machine. In other industries, it may refer to liquid filling and sealing machine, for filling such as olive oil into plastic capsule, which is a plastic container in the shape of capsule. This kind of the machine will be introduced in another article on our website, so please keep an eye on our website for updates.

When it comes to pharmaceutical capsule filling machine, first of all, we need to know what a capsule is and capsule classifications, then we can know what kind of machine should be used for capsule filling and encapsulation of different applications.

1. What is Capsule?

Capsule is a small cylindrical container filled with powder or liquid, easy-to-swallow. It is a perfect alternative to tablet medicine for the below reasons:

1) Capsule onset time is shorter than that of tablets. Tablets are formed by pressure through high-pressure stamping, and coated with a layer on the outside. So it needs a longer time for the tablets to disintegrate and provide medicine effects in the human body. While capsule shell is a thin gelatin layer, which dissolves quickly in contact with water or digestive juices, resulting in a rapid effect.

2) Capsules usually have no medicinal taste, since the powder/liquid medicine is isolated by the capsule shell when people take it. Although many tablets have a coating to mask medicine taste, people usually can feel the unpleasant taste of the pill once take it.

3) If in uneven disintegration, tablets are more susceptible to inconsistent breakdown, which can reduce medicine effectiveness and overall absorption.

2. Capsule Type

1) According to capsule material of the capsule, it can be divided into animal gelatin capsules (mainly made of animal bones, skins and other raw materials) and vegetable capsules (starch, fiber, seaweed). Regarding the difference between these two capsules, please read our article “Difference Between Vegetable Capsules and Animal Capsules”.

2) According to capsule physical form, it can be divided into hard capsules and soft capsules (gelatin pills). Hard capsule is an empty hollow capsule made of some medicine and appropriate excipients (preservatives, lubricants, colorants, etc.), and filled with powder/granules, liquid or micro capsules, etc.

3) Depending on the capsule process and application, the capsules can be filled with the following materials:

l · Granule

l · Powder

l · Solvent

l · Micro-capsule

l · Mixing of the above

When capsule contains solvents, we call it liquid capsule, which is completely different from soft capsule although they are both filled liquid. You will clearly understand their differences after reading the article.

What’s more, the filling ingredients also determines the capsule volume and classification required during capsule filling process in pharmaceutical industry. And you will understand the capsule dimension from the article.

After understanding the above mentioned information, let's take a look at what a capsule filling machine is, as well as its type and how it works.

3. What is a Capsule Filling Machine?

Capsule filling machine (also “capsule filler” or “capsule encapsulation”), is a machine used to fill the medicine into an empty capsule. According to application and function, it can be divided into professional capsule filling machine for mass pharmaceutical production (known as fully automatic capsule filling machines, semi-automatic capsule filling machines), and manual capsule filler machine, also known as capsule plate, for teaching, pharmacy or personal use.

- Professional machine for capsule productions are used in pharmaceutical industry for high-efficiency and large-scale production, they are mainly fully automatic filling machines, and some semi-automatic capsule encapsulators.

- Manual capsule filler, on the other hand, is used for small-scale capsule production. It allows a person or clinic to fill capsule with necessary prescription medication by hand when needed. The capsule filler is also widely used as a teaching tool in pharmacy by teachers and students when studying capsule pharmacy for its high cost-effective.

4. Capsule Maker Machine’s Working Principle

The detailed workflow of the capsule filling machine is as follows:

l · Feed the closed empty capsule into the capsule tray;

l · Separate the capsule cap from the capsule body;

l · Filling medicine ingredient into the capsule;

l · Lock the capsule with the filled medicine;

l · Discharge the filled and sealed capsules.

All hard capsule encapsulations process in the same principle.

5. Types of Capsule Manufacturing Machine

Updating...

For more chapters, please bookmark the website.