Flexible contained handling of powder transfer bags

Filling of transportation bags and discharging them into mix tanks or reactor vessels is often a source of contamination and there potential exposure of personnel to harmful substances.  Inadequate measures to avoid these issues often slow production and reduce profitability.  Experienced biopharmaceutical manufacturers know that equipment designed for general industry use often falls short and rigid containment and transfer solutions for the biotech industry are often awkward and inefficient. Producers that embrace flexible solutions designed specifically for the challenges of our industry will find an advantage over competitors.

A fast and clean flexible powder transfer system

ILC Dover is an industry leader in contained material handling solutions for high tech manufacturers and end users including NASA. The company’s EZ BioPac is a single use solution to contamination free powder transfer for the bioprocessing and pharmaceutical industries.  The system consists of a rigid polypropylene stand with integrated plastic bag.  The stand holds the bag in an open funnel shape for filling and doubles as a lifting point when the bag is ready to be emptied from the bottom.  The bag is oversized and includes enough material to fold back over the stand during filling to protect the stand from any spillage during filling.  The funnel shape of the supported bag in the filling configuration allows for easy manual addition and subtraction of material to ensure accurate fill weights.  A charge neck at the bottom is clamped to your reactor vessel or fill tank for discharging and a system of clamps is used to manually control material flow and seal the bag for disposal after it is empty.  Isolation of the contained material is thus maximized, greatly reducing cross contamination of the powder by substances from the work area, and of the work area by the handled powder.

BENEFITS

• Reduced fill time due to the fully open top

• Available volumes of up to 1000L reduce the number of bags required

• Large diameter charge necks up to 200mm allow rapid emptying

• Required cleaning is given by fold-over neck design which protects the stand during filling