What is Slot Die Coating?

Tapemark Engineer Mike Rothaupt explains what slot die coating is and how it helps us coat water-based systems. Learn more about our pharmaceutical coating process: www.tapemark.c...
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Transcript:
Hi, my name is Mike. I'm a Senior Process Engineer here at Tapemark and today I'm going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of slot die coating. So, this is the slot die coating stand that we have here at Tapemark. Right now, we just have the bottom of the slot die mounted to it so that you can discuss the geometry and how everything works.
So, while this is in operation, you'd have your coating substrate coming around your casting role and this would be in close proximity to that and when you're off coat it retracts. So, while it's in operation, you would be having your blend fed through the back of the slot die through a pump with very low pulsation, typically a gear pump is used some diaphragm pumps are also possibilities, so that would be forcing it through the back of the die splitting and spreading it through the internal manifold and then casting it directly onto your substrate.
So, the big advantage of this type of system is that it's completely closed so you don't have to worry about any solvent loss or contamination wallets open to the environment, and it also, because it's directly metered right onto it, it's relatively independent of any variation in your substrate. So, because of those two things, you are able to achieve very high precision for your coat weights using this method.
The disadvantages of this are that the setup for it can be quite cumbersome, it can take a lot longer to dial in your process, so on some of the R&D type jobs where you're really trying to utilize the amount of blend you have available that might not be as ideal. But, on larger scale applications this type really starts to show its advantages.