Quadro® Comil®

B A C K G R O U N D / R E Q U I R E M E N T

A large, multi-national manufacturer of fine chemicals approached Quadro to help develop a system for manufacturing highly potentAPI’s for a new drug the company was releasing. The manufacturer had several major concerns:

• containment of the API as the material posed a hazard to the operator’s health• explosion potential of the materials being processed• flexibility to allow for R&D work using the system

C O M I L ® P E R F O R M A N C E

To meet the requirements of the customer, Quadro teamed up the overdriven Comil®, the Quadro® Lift and the Quadro Vac®. The APIwas drawn from the fluid bed dryer using a Quadro Vac® outfitted with a safe change HEPA filter to eliminate the exposure ofharmful dust to the atmosphere. Both the Comil® and the Quadro Vac® were mounted on their own dedicated lifts to allow theequipment to be moved up and down as required by the process and to allow for easy cleaning. The Comil® was fitted with avariable speed drive allowing it to operate from 400 - 2400 rpm to give the flexibility needed to handle the development workrequired. From the Comil®, the material was gravity-fed into a bin underneath on a weigh scale. The Comil® was connected to theQuadro Vac® by a split ball valve. The Quadro Vac® transfered product in a fill/dump cycle while a pneumatic rotary valve control fedthe Comil® to ensure consistent mill loading. Both the Comil® and Quadro® Lift were contolled from one central panel that includedan earthing/grounding monitoring system to minimize explosion risk due to static electricity. To minimize operator exposure whenprocessing is complete, a special CIP cart was attached in place of the collection bin. The whole system was designed to be WIP(wash-in-place) without causing damage to the equipment.

S U M M A R Y

Quadro met the needs of the manufacturer by developing a system that could mill product in a contained environment to the desiredtarget mesh size consistently, without exposing the operator to the dangerous API’s during production or cleaning. Despite thecomplexity of the project, it was completed 4 weeks ahead of schedule in order to help the customer improve plant start-up time.

A P P L I C A T I O N B U L L E T I N A P 2 0

C O N T A I N I N G H I G H - P O T E N C Y A P I ’ S

Quadro® LiftQuadro® Lift

Quadro® Comil®

Split Ball Valve

Split V Valve

Quadro Vac®

Special ClP cart

Earthing/GroundingLugs

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