Testing Solution for Oxygen Barrier Property of Medical Blister Pack

OX2/230 Oxygen Transmission Rate Test System

Blister package is one type of pre-formed plastic packaging, which is featured with high barrier property and useful for protecting the products from external contaminations. Today blister package is widely used for protecting products against external factors, such as humidity and contamination for extended periods of time. Blister package usually has a backing of paperboard or a lidding seal of aluminum foil or plastic.

In medical industry, blister packs are commonly used as unit-dose packaging for pharmaceutical tablets, capsules or lozenges. The medicines are held in the blister cavities, which are independent from each other so even though one blister cavity is broken, others can keep intact. The oxygen barrier property is one main property of blister pack that may influence its performance when it is used for pharmaceuticals. To be specific, if the oxygen barrier property of the blister pack is insufficient, the medicine may change in color or even get deteriorated. As a result, the efficacy and shelf life of the medicine will be compromised as well the brand image of the manufacturer will be affected seriously. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the oxygen barrier property tests of the blister pack for pharmaceuticals before use.

This article provides a test method of oxygen barrier property of blister pack for your reference. The test specimens are blister pack samples provided by one medical company. The testing instrument is Labthink’s OX2/230 Oxygen Transmission Rate Test System.

This instrument uses a coulometric detector to determine the oxygen transmission rate. The specimen is mounted as a sealed semi-barrier between two chambers at ambient atmospheric pressure. One chamber is slowly purged by a stream of nitrogen at a given temperature and relative humidity and the other chamber is purged by a stream of oxygen at the same temperature as the nitrogen stream but may have a different relative humidity than the nitrogen stream. In this case the environment would more closely simulate actual shelf conditions. As oxygen gas permeates through the film into the nitrogen carrier gas, it is transported to the coulometric detector where it produces an electrical current, the magnitude of which is proportional to the amount of oxygen flowing into the detector per unit time. Note: For the package specimens, nitrogen flows inside the package while oxygen flow outside the package.

The tests can be performed according to the following procedures.

(1) Fix one specimen in the special sample fixture and then fix the specimen on a test support for package test. Seal the specimen and connect it to the instrument with pipes. Then cover the specimen and test support with a sealing bag.

(2) Set specimen name, test temperature, test humidity and other test parameters.

(3) Click Start Test to start the test.

(4) Turn on the gas supply. Adjust the humidity and carrier gas flow rate.

(5) When the test is finished, the test results will be calculated and displayed automatically.

For more details about OX2/230 Oxygen Transmission Rate Test System, please visit www.labthink.com

About Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd:

Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd is one leading supplier of packaging testing instruments, which is headquartered in Jinan, China and operated in Boston, U.S.A.