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2021

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09

How to be a high grade mixer for life science industry?


Background
Last week, we give detailed introduction to the equipment commonly used in the life science industry. To get perfect mixing, special attention should be paid when designing. Life science is mainly applied to human body. The requirements for equipment are much higher than those in other ordinary industries. GMP standard are always the key requirement both in design and production process for mixers. S&L Group considers meeting GMP and food grade requirements for customers in every detail design of mixer.

 

Main Shaft Seal Design
Sealing is one of the most critical parts of the equipment. The ordinary PTFE packing seal can no longer meet the requirements of GMP and food grade. The packing will be worn out and directly mixed with the products, resulting in the contamination of the materials, while this is difficult to be found. To solve this problem, our company has developed lip mechanical seal, which completely avoid the risk of contamination from worn packing. The sealing material inside is FDA certified. These kind seal has been used in many of our customer equipment in the pharmaceutical and food industries. It is fully proved its superiority and reliability. International brand is also available for the design.

 

Discharge Valve Design
No dead corner or accumulation is the basic condition to meet the GMP requirements. The discharge valve is a circular valve plate to fully fit the cylinder, and the sealing slot is precisely processed by wire cutting to ensure perfect sealing effect. Considering manual cleaning for bottom discharging valve cost your time and energy, S&L develops CIP cleaning nozzles on discharge valve. It is fully facilitate the cleaning of the discharge valve. 

 

Welding, Grinding, Polishing
According to GMP standard, argon arc welding is required for all mixing parts, which is polished into chamfering to avoid material accumulation. The final surface treatment even can be Ra 0.8.

 

Drying Vacuum Design
For some special cases, we can design external jacket and main shaft heating to increase the material temperature inside vessel through hot water, thermal conductive oil or steam. In addition, it can achieve good and rapid drying effect by vacuum.  The pulse dust collector on the top finally separate the material and steam and the materials stuck on the fiber bag will be blow back into the mixer.

 

CIP Cleaning
Cleaning is an essential step for sanitary equipment. That's why some customers require CIP cleaning device to the equipment in order to save labor cost. Rotary cleaning nozzle can be designed on the mixer wall and discharge valve. After the production completed, the customer will use the mobile washing truck or fixed water tank for deep cleaning. After cleaning, it needs to be dried with hot air or exhaust air.

 

User Case
In 2018, S&L supplied Merck (Nantong) with three sets of continuous mixing equipment systems for mixing high-purity inorganic salt products (APIs, supplements and food additives). Merck is a leading enterprise in the world, which is dedicated to providing various solutions and services for research, development and production of biotechnology, as well as pharmaceutical drug therapy. The three sets continuous horizontal ribbon mixers are mainly used for mixing the materials dried by fluidized bed, after that the final product are prepared for packing. One of them is with a jacket with hot and cold switching function, which can be used for material cooling and drying again. All sealing materials are provided with FDA certificates. The equipment is made of stainless steel 316L and 904L, which can resist strong corrosion. 

 

The main shaft adopts the lip mechanical seal developed by S&L, with PLC control system for the whole project. So far the equipment runs well for 3 years and get highly praised by our customer. 

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