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Vibratory screening of pharmaceutical powders

GlaxoSmithKline eliminate mesh blinding with the Russell Vibrasonic Deblinding System

GlaxoSmithKline is improving process efficiency in the production of pharmaceutical powders at its “centre of excellence” plant in Dartford, Kent, by investing in nine new high performance vibrating screen separators fitted with the Vibrasonic® Deblinding System from Russell Finex. Many of the pharmaceutical powders produced at the plant are difficult to screen efficiently because of mesh blinding and also because they are low density and gain static so instead of passing easily through a conventional separator they tend to float above the mesh, slowing down production and reducing efficiency.

Screening pharmaceutical powders

The new Vibrasonic® Deblinding System has solved these problems, significantly increasing productivity as well as reducing costs, and meeting their HACCP and due diligence requirements. The separators are used at the final stage of primary manufacture, screening the pharmaceutical powders to the required size before they are sent away for the second manufacturing stage when the powders are made either into tablets or a liquid suspension. The Vibrasonic 2000 also gives greater control over the mesh and powder settings to increase throughput of static powders. The strength and duration of the ultrasonic activity can be tailored to suit the particular production run - GlaxoSmithKline use the pulse facility, the ultrasonic frequency, switching it on and off at pre-set intervals to allow the powder to fall through the screen, instead of floating above it, and so maintain a consistently high throughput.

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What our clients say

“The new Vibrasonic system works extremely well - it has increased our productivity levels and is a great improvement on the older design of machines that we used before - it gives us much greater control, we can ‘tune’ the Vibrasonic system to the products.”

Production Supervisor at GlaxoSmithKline
Path 8

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