A nitrogen purged milling system for delumping an active pharmaceutical ingredient prior to packaging has recently been supplied to Astrazeneca by Hosokawa Micron. Designed in conjunction with Astrazeneca engineers to provide integrated and additional safety features and superior cleaning procedures the milling system demonstrates good operating practices for handling potentially explosive fine powder APIs. The milling process has been introduced to the production line to deliver a homogenous free flowing, lump free product of consistent particle size. To facilitate the homogenisation of this active pharmaceutical ingredient the system has been designed incorporating a classic homogenisation mill, the Bepex Bexmill. With its low energy, gentle action it is ideally suited to handling sensitive products where a significant temperature rise would be detrimental. The Bexmill has a single vertical rotor which rotates close to a conical screen mesh and by careful selection of screen mesh size and adjustment of rotor speed lumpy materials can be rendered free flowing and of a consistent particle size. Air flow through the unit is minimal and the product temperature rise insignificant ensuring very gentle size reduction with minimum fines. The Astrazeneca material is transferred from a pressure filter dryer into a receiving vessel and then metered into a Hosokawa pharmaceutical design of easy clean Bexmill via a rotary valve. The Bexmill is a slow speed comminution device which is very effective in delumping without product damage. Designed to be easy clean by hand the whole system can be readily stripped down before a final sterilisation in place with compressed air and peracetic acid at 0.1 bar takes place.
Hall 5.0, Booth D38
Online-Info www.cpp-net.com/2209449
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