Rapid mixing of large quantities of pharmaceutical powders afforded by new system

A specialist in engineering solutions, ILC Dover, has established the efficacy of its JetBreaker delumping system through multiple tests, performed at its facility in Rossens, Switzerland.

“Many powders, including sodium chloride and ammonium sulphide, can harden into a solid block that cannot be dispensed into process liquids without deagglomeration,” said Scott Patterson, ILC Dover vice president of commercial sales. “If the resultant aggregate is not fine enough, it can damage process valves, the tank and other processing equipment — ultimately ruining the batch of finished pharmaceutical product.”

The tests examined the ability of the JetBreaker system to produce homogenous powder with proper particle size to allow for complete mixing with a large jet injector.

“Powder clumping is an industrywide problem, which is currently managed in a highly imprecise manner,” added Patterson. “Using our JetBreaker system eliminates this problem. Once the powder goes through the JetBreaker, it can freely flow into our mixing system with rapid dissolution and no risk of powder chunks plugging or damaging the venturi or downstream components.”

Test results were successful for powders flowing through a feed hopper into ILC’s Jet venturi mixing system at 1,250 kilograms per hour.