ABSTRACT
Derived from industrial dry powder coatings, electrostatic dry powder coating for pharmaceutics gained numbers of attentions in recent years. In this technology, powdered coating materials are directly sprayed onto the surface of the solid dosage through an electrostatic gun without using any solvent or water, followed by a curing step to allow those deposited coating particles to coalesce together and form a coating film. The electrostatic dry powder technology has many advantages compared with solvent or aqueous coating such as higher coating efficiency with better coating film, less energy consumption and shorter processing time, which is a promising alternative of liquid coatings used in the present pharmaceutical industry.The objective of this review is to introduce the development background, fundamental principles, technological superiority of the electrostatic powder coating for solid dosage forms,and to summarize and discuss those reported results, giving prospects for the future industrial applications.