Containment Technology: Maximum Application Scope with Flexible Isolators

- User-friendly and efficient: flexible isolators

The use of highly active pharmaceutical substances is an important element of medical research all over the world. As a consequence, the demands on both the product and personnel safety also increase constantly in the production of pharmaceuticals. Hosokawa Alpine meets this requirement through an integrated containment concept comprising of grinding technology and an isolator. The customers benefit here from a complete system from one single source: Hosokawa Alpine combines the process-technological know-how for complex grinding systems and the challenges constituted by the isolator design to ensure safe handling of the active substances to form an extensive and sophisticated containment solution.

User-friendly and efficient: flexible isolators

Customers from the sectors of research, pharmaceuticals or biotechnology often want containment solutions to be housed in flexible enclosures. Hosokawa Alpine's: flexible isolators housed in plastic film make systems for powder processing user-friendly, ergonomical and versatile in use. The financial advantages for customers start with the much lower procurement costs in comparison to enclosures made of stainless steel and range up to reduced operating costs. The savings in the production process are due to the considerably reduced cleaning costs. The handling also brings advantages for the customer: the containment can be employed to match the toxicity of the product, whereby a high level of protection (OEL < 1µg/m³) is achieved. In the case of smaller production batches with frequent product changes, the Flex-Isolator can be converted to suit the new conditions. Furthermore, the multimill system allows the flexible integration and activation of up to four mill types in one isolator, in order to vary the batch size and fineness of the end product.

In the development of containment solutions, Hosokawa Alpine profits from the long years of expertise in the production processes, as Olaf Born, Head of Engineering of the Pharma & Lab Division at Hosokawa Alpine, explains: "We keep a close eye on all the risks and take them into due consideration. Seals, welds and the atmosphere inside the system must be brought exactly into line with the pharmaceutical product and its toxicity. To this end, we have developed monobloc components and a design with no dead spaces. If the isolator is integrated into the customer's product process, we examine batch sizes and all the structural conditions on site." Both standard solutions and customised special solutions are developed by Hosokawa Alpine to be equally effective, as a result of which the customers profit from high-performance and future-oriented systems.