Containment Philosophy of GEA Pharma Systems
Contamination Control is vital in a wide range of manufacturing operations in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and above all in powder, granulate and other bulk material handling processes.
Often docking operations have to be performed, these operations traditionally take place in expensive clean room environments because of the risk of releasing dangerous materials after undocking.
Within our contained materials handling solutions GEA Pharma Systems docking system, using Buck® and Buck Systems Technology, offers an alternative method allowing the docking and undocking operations to be carried out in a non controlled environment.
The Buck® Valve
The principle of the Buck® valve system is that there are two valve halves; a passive valve which is fitted to the IBC (or other mobile container) and an active valve which would be located on a Discharge Station (or other piece of process equipment).
When the IBC is docked onto a corresponding Station, the two external faces of the valves are sealed together to prevent product from contaminating the surfaces. Opening of the valve then allows material to pass through without the external disc faces seeing any product. A dust extraction system will remove any powder residues that may be left following the undocking of the two valve halves.
The containment levels available are determined by the valve designation (ie “
C”, “
HC”, “
UHC” ). One of the main features of this type of valve is that it is possible to upgrade easily from one “level” to another as containment levels may need to be improved in the future.