MEDICAL & PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY FOCUS
Why process valves met the demands of a new hygienic production facility
F
or its new large-scale manufacturing facility, life sciences company Purolite
appointed Briggs of Burton as the main contractor to design and build the hygienic production facility, consisting of eleven reactor vessels split across nine production areas. The equipment would be located in a range
of environments from outdoors to ATEX zone 1. The valves, sensors or control gear located in potentially explosive atmospheres needed to be manufactured and certified, and installed by suitably qualified engineers. The company therefore needed a supplier
that could deliver the valves as well as the 3D CAD drawings and relevant certification to integrate into their overall 3D model. The drawings are essential for the design engineers to finalise the valve locations and ensure that all the equipment will fit into the space available around the vessels. Briggs initially approached Bürkert for diaphragm valves, but it
became apparent that the company would be able to deliver all the process valves needed for this application –including butterfly, quarter turn, diaphragm and manual valves.
FAST INSTALLATION Over 1,400 process valves were needed for the project, and each one had to be accompanied by certification documents and drawings. So, Bürkert set up an online resource for Briggs engineers to login and access all the information they required. The company also packaged together all the valves for each production area and labelled them accordingly, making the installation process much quicker as it ensured all the necessary
ENSURING PATIENT COMFORT
Nearly 80,000 people each year attend the A&E department at one hospital in Devon, which offers patients access to vital services ranging from general surgery to mental health facilities. Such environments need to
have zero-downtime when it comes to maintenance so, here,
the expertise of Rotamec – an electro-mechanical engineering service provider – has helped to guarantee patient comfort. The company refurbishes or replaces engineered equipment such as
pumps, motors and gearboxes and, at the hospital, primarily helped to ensure the reliability of the ventilation and heating systems. Heating and ventilation ensures that all areas of the hospital are kept at a consistent ambient temperature. For areas such as operating theatres, the quality of air and heating is key to a successful procedure and patient recovery. Even something as simple as a faulty bearing on a fan motor can produce noise that is amplified through ductwork across the building. As reliability of equipment translates directly to standard of care, potential issues therefore needed to be responded to quickly. Jonathan Whitlock, branch manager at Rotamec’s Exeter facility,
said: “Our on-site teams have been involved in a wide variety of work. From repairing motors, changing bearings, servicing fans, refurbishing compressors and refreshing pumps, to supplying new belts and spares – we can offer a complete turnkey service to keep these systems running as efficiently as possible.”
Rotamec
www.rotamec.com
valves were in the correct location. Aside from the standard process
valves, Bürkert was also able to create bespoke solutions for tank bottom valves; and multi-seat valve blocks were manufactured to minimise the footprint of the installation. Every part was delivered with the correct control gear and seals for a simple installation. Damien Moran, field segment manager
Hygienic, Pharmaceutical, for Bürkert, said: “Our aim is to deliver the best solution for the customer and our products are designed so that they fit into local decentralised, or as in this
case centralised, control structures. With some additional advice, we were able to keep the project costs to a minimum, while ensuring reliability.” For this project, all the automated valves have pilot solenoid valves in
the control head, or in the case of the quarter turn valves, located in the switch box on the top of the controller. This made a number of external valve islands and the associated ATEX rated pneumatic control panels redundant, saving the project around £80,000. The new facility is capable of producing 100,000l of high flow agarose
resin annually for the Praesto range of Protein A affinity and ion-exchange resins, designed for the purification of monoclonal antibodies.
Bürkert Fluid Control Systems
www.burkert.co.uk
DESIGN SOLUTIONS | MARCH 2020
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