BGS Beta-Gamma-Service has brought its first US facility, BGS US LLC, closer to completion with the recent installation of a high power E-Beam accelerator.
BGS Beta-Gamma-Service
The unit features precision beam current, higher sustainability, and utmost reliability, enabling precise dosing at high throughput rates. The 100,000-square-foot BGS US plant is in Imperial, PA, near the Pittsburgh International Airport. It will begin performing fully automated E-Beam sterilisation in mid-2025.
“Installation of the accelerator brings us closer to becoming operational,” says Leonard Zuba, general manager, BGS US. “It also demonstrates our team’s ability to work together to achieve goals according to plan. The collaborative approach we used to ensure timely installation of the accelerator is the same one that we will use to serve customers from throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and South.”
One of the main features of the accelerator is that it consumes 30% less energy than other high voltage accelerators when converting electricity into E-Beam power. This makes electron sterilisation an efficient, environmentally friendly, and economical sterilisation method.
Why use E-Beam sterilisation?
For decades, ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilisation has been the preferred sterilisation method of medical device manufacturers. In recent years, growing awareness of the environmental hazards associated with the technology, along with an increasingly difficult-to-obtain supply of Cobalt-60 for gamma sterilisation, have threatened domestic sterilisation capacity. Technologies such as E-Beam sterilisation that use concentrated beams of electrons to sterilise products are practical alternatives that can alleviate supply chain bottlenecks.
The technologies that BGS US will use in Pittsburgh have proven to be effective at the company’s three sites in Germany. BGS is one of the pioneers in the use of E-Beam technology and operated one of the first E-Beam sterilisation facilities of its kind.