Pharmaceutical spray drying with LEWA diaphragm metering pumps

Pharmaceutical, biotechnological products, food or plant extracts for personal hygiene products and also fine chemicals dry fast through maximizing of the surface of the wet products.

LEWA diaphragm metering pumps from the hygienic und sanitary series in triplex design are perfect for reliable and safe metering in the spray drying process in the GMP environment.

Solution

Advantages of LEWA diaphragm metering pumps for pharmaceutical spray dryers:

  • Hermetically sealed, no contaminants can get in or out
  • Easy-to-clean design, easy accessibility for maintenance purposes
  • High security thanks to 4-layer sandwich diaphragm with diaphragm monitoring and signaling without product contamination
  • Clean operation – no particle abrasion in the LEWA pump
  • Hygienic design, specially developed with and for the pharmaceutical industry (GMP-compliant)
  • Coating of spray dryer nozzles with constant pressure through a rigid pump curve
  • Gentle conveyance, no high shear forces
  • Low hold-up in the pump head thanks to design with minimized dead space
  • CIP; SIP; DIP
  • FAT, SAT and global service

Options:

  • Material 1.4435 (AISI 316L) with a surface roughness of Ra < 0.5µm
  • Inert and FDA compliant construction materials
  • Ex-proof protection, ATEX conformity
  • According to ASME BPE
  • Comprehensive documentation for qualification

LEWA is a member of leading committees for the hygienic design of pumps and systems:

Areas of application

LEWA metering pumps are used, for example, for:

  • Aqueous solutions, suspensions and emulsions
  • Compositions based on organic solvents, such as ethanol, isopropanol, acetone or methylene chloride

Filler, binder, disintegrants, sliding agents can thus be dissolved or suspended and transferred with the active material in defined, dry, free flowing, uniform particles.

Background

The fundamental concept of spray drying

The production of finely dispersed powder from a wet charging fluid by vaporizing the liquid:

  • A solution /suspension is sprayed via nozzles or rotating disk atomizers into a hot air or nitrogen flow
  • The supply to the spray drying system uses suitable pumps. Drying and particle formation are done simultaneously in the spraying process during this process. Due to these higher requirements on the pharmaceutical technology, the demands which are put on the bioavailability of a drug also increase. The effectiveness of a drug also depends on the generated particle size, after all.

Important customer requirements for this are:

  1. Particle size distribution
  2. Percentage of residual moisture
  3. Bulk density and particle shape
  4. Maintaining exact and consistent quality standards
  5. Precise, continuing, safe and
  6. low-pulsation fluid supply

Process scheme pharmaceutical spray drying

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