Why Degassing Comes First: How Entrained Air Skews Dissolution Curves—and How to Deploy It Right

Introduction. Entrained air in dissolution media is a key hidden variable that destabilizes early time points and harms reproducibility. Making vacuum degassing and medium management a standard, front-loaded step is a small-cost, high-return practice.

How air perturbs the results

• Boundary layer distortion: Bubbles alter the effective shear at the dosage surface and on paddles/baskets, causing unstable early release rates.
• Sampling/filtration noise: Inline/offline filtration can show small swings when bubbles are present, driving false retests.
• Method transfer risk: Different sites use different degassing approaches, making curves difficult to align during transfer.

Lab deployment essentials

• SOP hardening: Specify how to degas (method), temperature/time, post-degassing rest, and the valid use window of prepared media.
• Sampling coupling: Standardize sampling times, filtration path, and make-up (backfill) strategy to reduce system bias.
• Traceable records: Retain degassing conditions and batch records to support internal review and regulatory submissions.

HUANGHAI’s medium management recommendations

• Integrate a HTQ-1A Vacuum Degasser into the “medium preparation” standard workflow, together with temperature control and defined rest time.
• Bind degassing parameters and SST to a method card to support method transfer and cross-batch consistency.

For related systems, see the full dissolution portfolio: Dissolution Instruments and the solution overview: Pharmaceutical Dissolution Testing Solutions.

Conclusion

Starting with “medium paired first” — i.e., degas → rest → temperature control — markedly reduces curve jitter and retest cost, while laying a solid foundation for method transfer and registration consistency.