Safe dedusting and grinding of active ingredients
5/6/2024 Preparation & dosing Article

Safe dedusting and grinding of active ingredients

The market for containment solutions is growing. The current GMP and REACH regulations are also fuelling this trend. At POWTECH 2023, numerous suppliers presented interesting solutions for handling toxic powders up to OEB 6. In this article, we present current solutions for dedusting, grinding and cleaning under containment conditions.

Woman stands at machine. The trend towards ever more toxic substances and active ingredients and the simultaneously increasing requirements for the protection of operating personnel mean that the need for containment solutions is growing.

In pharmaceutical and chemical production, highly active substances increasingly need to be handled safely or protected from contamination. In addition to the safe sampling, dosing and processing of hazardous substances, for which we described solutions in Part 1 of our series of articles on containment, the safe separation of dusts and the safe grinding of highly active substances are also important.

Highly developed solutions for dedusting and grinding under containment conditions

HET-Filter recently presented new HEPA filter systems that can be customised to meet stringent explosion protection and containment requirements thanks to their modular design. These systems filter fine dusts and suspended particles with an efficiency of over 99.995 %, achieving clean gas values of up to 0.0001 mg/m³. They fulfil the safety requirements up to containment level OEB 5 and are suitable for both low and high volume flows.

Filter system for the separation of toxic dusts The internal HEPA filter cell of the HETdynamic filter system regenerates automatically if the dust load is too high.
The HETdynamic filter system is an interesting option for dust concentrations from 5 mg/m³. Its internal HEPA filter cell regenerates automatically if the dust load is too high. This increases the service life of the filter cell and allows maintenance and filter change intervals to be extended considerably. Alternatively, regeneration can take place after extraction. This allows the same volume flow to be cleaned with a significantly smaller filter surface. In continuous operation, the system can be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The system is characterised by continuous and discontinuous operation and DEHS measuring points for qualifying the safety filter stage. The GMP-compliant design fulfils safety requirements up to containment level OEB 5.

Author

Armin Scheuermann

Armin Scheuermann

Chemical engineer and freelance specialised journalist