Flexible milling from Hosokawa
applications that ties in with the industry-wide trend towards
using flexible, multipurpose production units.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are moving away from dedicated single product facilities, in favour of plants that can process several high value products in the one fully validated production unit.
Mindful of this, Hosokawa Micron has developed an ultra fine grinding/micronising suite that has a high level of containment, making it suitable for use in close proximity to other processing equipment and also safe for operators to use without using 'bunny suits' and masks.
"No special protective clothing is required during processing with full CIP (clean in place) systems to ensure cleanliness between batches as well as operator safety during any dismantling operation," said the company.
The grinding system consists of an enclosed drum tipping section for the unloading of the primary coarse product, a classifier milling unit and a final fill/weigh packing system for the end milled product. Each of the drum handling operations is carried out in a negative pressure isolator.
The drum tip unit is totally enclosed in a Stott isolator, achieving barrier containment levels down to 5 microgrammes per cubic metre, and interlocked door access ensures each compartment is secure during the process.
At the heart of the new system is Hosokawa's Alpine 100ZPS mill, which uses a system known as air classification to ensure a sharp cut off at the top size for particles, as well as a narrow particle size distribution.It can also be simply converted to a 200AFG fluid bed jet micronising unit using compressed air or gas by simply swapping the bottom section of the unit.
"This allows the processing of all present products and gives the flexibility to introduce future products," said the company in a statement.
