Advancing effervescent floating systems: Leveraging multi-layer coatings for enhanced buoyancy and controlled drug release

This study investigated the effectiveness of multi-layer coating techniques in enhancing buoyancy and controlled drug release in effervescent floating systems. By developing a novel multi-layered coated tablet with core effervescent and gas-entrapped layers, we systematically varied the number of spray-coating layers to observe their effects on tablet performance. Increasing the layers reduced the tablet’s time to float to 1.25 min. The rapid buoyancy was attributed to the thinner gas-entrapped layers, which enabled faster interactions between the gas-forming agents and the acidic medium. The floating duration remained consistent at over 8 h across all formulations. An increase in coating layers resulted in delayed drug release, controlled via a zero-order and Higuchi model through the gas-entrapped membrane. These findings highlight that multi-layer coating techniques can improve effervescent floating systems for pharmaceutical applications, providing rapid buoyancy and controlled drug release.