Preventing moisture vital to ensure product quality

THE primary purpose of packaging is to take a product to a customer without any quality degradation. Packaging plays many significant roles such as containing and protecting products during distribution, storage and use, while also promoting, educating and selling.

- S Unnikrishnan

The most vital factor in maintaining the quality of pharmaceuticals throughout its shelf-life is the integrity of its packaging. Preventing moisture from permeating through the packaging is a significant function of the container-closure system used for pharmaceuticals.

Stability for all pharmaceuticals is associated with the availability of the active ingredient during the entire shelf-life, without the occurrence of any adverse event or reaction of degradation.

Package system must be chemically inert to avoid interactions between the medicines/products, packaging and the closure material (must avoid leachable or extractable materials). It should be an effective barrier against moisture and gases to protect the product and thus guarantee the efficacy of the medicine. A barrier material's design has a great impact on moisture vapour transmission rate.

Water vapour can readily move either from the inside of a package to the outside environment, or from the outside environment to the inside of the package. Either way it can impact the quality and shelf-life of a packaged product.

Moisture vapour transmission rate

Moisture vapour transmission rate also known as water vapour transmission rate, is the amount of water vapour that passes through a substance or a material over a specific period of time.

Water vapour transmission rate referred to alternatively as moisture vapour transmission rate, stands for the standard measure of the passing - permeation - of gaseous water through a substrate. It is the steady state rate at which gaseous water vapour passes through a substrate at specific temperature and relative humidity conditions over a peculiar period of time.