SAPHIRE

Objective of the project

The SAPHIRE project aims to improve the production quality and efficiency of pharmaceutical tablets and capsules by developing an innovative, multimodal and fully integrated online optical inspection device.

Various parameters are sought, such as measurement of the coating thickness, chemical composition, moisture content, weight, etc.

Different technologies may be considered, such as spectroscopy (infrared and/or Terahertz), Time-of-Flight measurements, 3D reconstruction, fluorescence…

Contribution of Multitel

MULTITEL and DELTATEC will work on the development of solutions based mainly on terahertz technology. MULTITEL will develop the solutions in the laboratory and DELTATEC will develop the various interfaces for control and signal management (for MULTITEL’s solutions but also for those developed by ALPhanov).

MULTITEL will develop a solution to determine the coating thickness measurement. The proposed technique is based on the Time of Flight measurement. The terahertz pulse will reflect on the external interface of the tablet but also on the interface between the heart and its coating. Thus two time peaks can be detected. The time difference between the two signals can be related to the thickness of the material.

The moisture measurement will be correlated to the amplitude of the terahertz signal passing through the sample, which is very dependent on the water concentration of the material. The measurement of the density of the material can be determined in relation to the delay accumulated by a terahertz signal crossing it and can be used to estimate the weight of the tablet thanks to the volume control already implemented on the line.

 

Coordinator

• Proditec

Partners

• Multitel
• Deltatec
• Alphanov