What’s the Temperature& Humidity Control in Softgel Manufacturing?

It is no doubt to have a suitable temperature and humidity control in each stage of softgel manufacturing. Temperature and RH affect the success of encapsulation directly. Some producer tends to neglect these facts.

1. Softgel Encapsulation Room temp& RH
First of all, what softgel in production? Gelatin or veggie softgel capsule?
To make animal softgel, the temperature of the encapsulation room should be around 23-25℃. If the temperature set too low, it will be difficult to cut off the gelatin ribbon, therefore also affect seaming. The humidity for animal softgel is also less strict than vegetable softgel. Humidity control is about 30-40%. High bloom quality gelatin powder can set＜40%. Low bloom powder is better set around 30%.

For vegetable softgel, is better set at a lower temperature around 20-21℃,especially for starchgel/tapioca softgel. Some softgel manufacturers ignore the humidity control of the encapsulation rooms because they use old cleanrooms which is not easy to install dehumidifiers. The result is that the drying time of softgel will be much longer.

2. Temperature& Relative Humidity for Softgel Drying
Humidity should be under 30%, a suggested range of 25-30%. Too high room humidity will prolong softgel drying time which is a waste of time. A regular cleanroom is about 25℃ and humidity about 60-70%. So usually dehumidifier needs in softgel manufacturing to lower the temperature

3. Is the Lower Temperature the Better?
Lower temperature doesn’t help in encapsulation. The gelatin ribbon under too cold temperature and with the fan on the encapsulation machine, will plasticize. Therefore, the dies are difficult to cut off gelatin ribbon. This might lead to bad seaming or leakage of softgel.

4. Is the Lower Humidity the Faster for Drying?
It doesn’t right that lower humidity the faster drying process can be. A lower humidity will take away water faster initially, but when softgel store in a regular room, it will suck water back from the environment again. So too fast drying is not a good thing during the whole process. Different types of Softgel consume different time in the drying process, for example, suspension usually takes a longer time than oil softgel to dry.

5. How to Speed up Softgel Drying Process and Shorten the Drying time?
The shorter drying time reduce softgel production cost a lot. For a new plant, users can plan and design a room with suitable temperature and humidity at the beginning. But in an existing softgel manufacturing line, user can either choose to have more drying tumblers or more drying trays. In this cases, Joysun offers two options.

1# Option: Using stand-alone dehumidifier to lower humidity while still keep a stable room temperature.

2# Option: Trying out our all-in-one big-size tumbler dryer. It combines a desiccant dehumidifier of temperature& humidity control inside one basket of the tumble dryer. One basket is one independent small ‘cleanroom’.