[Editorial Viewpoint of China Pharmaceutical Network] Drying and sterilization are one of the indispensable links in the processing of medicinal materials, which can prevent the occurrence of mildew, decay and other phenomena of medicinal materials. Among them, the microwave drying equipment for medicinal materials is one of the hot drying equipment in recent years, which is mainly used for the drying and sterilization of pills (water pills, dense pills, water dense pills, etc.), tablets, powder, granules, various oral liquids, Chinese and Western medicinal materials, etc.

(Microwave drying technology breaks the traditional drying bottleneck to better retain the drug efficacy)

For a long time, China"s pharmaceutical processing industry has adopted traditional heating drying and sterilization methods, such as using hot air and far infrared to dry drugs, and using high temperature and high pressure to sterilize. Although the traditional drying and sterilization method can solve the temporary problems, the thermal efficiency is low, the heating time is long, the floor area is large, and it is not conducive to environmental protection. At the same time, the traditional sterilization should be kept for 20~40 minutes under the high temperature of 120 ℃, and the efficacy and nutrition of the drug will be damaged to a certain extent.

With the development of the pharmaceutical processing industry, the market attaches more importance to the efficacy of drugs. With the development of the concept of energy conservation and environmental protection, high utilization, high efficiency and environmental protection have become the theme of almost all walks of life. The traditional drying and sterilization methods will be gradually eliminated. The use of microwave drying and sterilization technology can give full play to the characteristics of microwave drying and sterilization, and can solve the disadvantages of traditional heating. Therefore, microwave drying technology has become a new trend in the market.

The application of microwave drying technology in the pharmaceutical industry has many aspects, such as rapid drying, insecticidal and sterilization of traditional Chinese medicine; Drying and sterilization of Chinese patent medicines, tablets and pills; Drying and sterilization of powdered chemicals; Sterilization of oral liquid, etc. In order to prevent mildew during the storage and transportation of Chinese medicinal materials or in the processing before processing, they must be dried. When drying different raw materials with traditional heating method, the heating inside and outside of raw materials is uneven, the energy consumption is large, the drying time is long, and the drying effect is not ideal. When microwave is used for treatment, because the material directly absorbs microwave energy to achieve the purpose of heating, the material is heated evenly inside and outside, with high speed, short time, high grade of medicine, low energy consumption, etc.

Experts said that with the carefully designed microwave drying machine for pills, the processed pills do not crack, have good consistency, maintain the original quality, and extend the shelf life. The equipment using 5KW microwave oral liquid sterilization can process more than 5000 pieces of oral liquid of 10ML per hour, and its sterilization temperature is only about 80 ℃, and the time is less than 1 minute. Not only does the hygienic index meet the standard, but also the oral liquid has clear color, maintains the original nutritional composition of the oral liquid, has no precipitation, and has a good taste.

With the rapid development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry, the scale has also gradually expanded, and with the promotion of the international status of traditional Chinese medicine, its industry development prospects are huge. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission released the 2016 edition of the Guiding Catalogue of Key Products and Services in Strategic Emerging Industries, which listed many products and services of modern Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine as the key of strategic emerging industries. It is clear that green manufacturing of traditional Chinese medicine and intelligent manufacturing technology system and equipment development research will be adopted; Processing technology and quality control technology and equipment of traditional Chinese medicine.