A Frewitt customer has produced dilutions and solutions for phytotherapy and homeopathy since 1935. Standardising procedures and protecting products and staff are among the main concerns of this French company. The Fredrive milling system, which can be equipped with three different milling heads, makes an important contribution here.
Author Frédéric Pasche Regional Sales Manager, Frewitt
The difference compared to synthetically produced drugs is that “herbal remedies use extracts from many active ingredients” (Professor Beat Meier, MD). These extracts are procured from plants or parts of plants: comminuted plant material is placed in a solvent and mixed thoroughly. The solid components are first separated and then processed: unwanted constituents are removed in order to concentrate the effectiveness of key ingredients. The liquid extract is then evaporated to obtain a dry extract and formed into tablets, capsules or solutions.
Unlike synthetics, natural medicines contain no chemicals but are derived from medicinal plant extracts. It is therefore important that these medicines are manufactured from high quality raw materials in a standardised process.
The Frewitt customer was particularly keen to standardise the different milling systems – including the manual product feed and disassembly of the systems for cleaning – and in future carry out this process step safely and dust-free on a compact, mobile unit.
Testing accompanied by studies
This customer has worked with sieve mills from Frewitt for a long time. Its production managers value the fact that Frewitt not only builds mills but also has a laboratory for testing customer products. They consequently decided to travel to Fribourg, Switzerland. Tests were performed for one day on products with various properties: Xilitol in the form of lumps, magnesium, glass sugar and two other prod-ucts were ground on the Turbowitt (cylindrical sieve mill), Hammerwitt (hammer mill) and Coniwitt (conical sieve). The Turbowitt is ideal for homogenisation and controlled sifting of granules while the Hammerwitt is the mill of choice for fine milling and pulverising hard, crystalline or fibrous products and the Coniwitt is suitable for deagglomerating and sizing products with different properties. Right from the start of the experiments, everyone participating felt that the Coniwitt was the device to use until the issue of modularity was discussed in more detail.
Completely different milling design
Although all the products could be milled on the Coniwitt, the results did not always meet the customer’s specifications. After a thorough review of all product properties, it was therefore decided to investigate the Fredrive milling concept more deeply. The Fredrive consists of a base module containing a control module and drive. Three different milling heads can be installed in the swing arm of the base module using a Tri-Clamp flange. Depending on the process (primary crushing, deagglomeration, granulation, controlled sifting or fine milling) or the product properties (hard, soft, sticky, crystalline or fibrous), either the Turbowitt, the Coniwitt or the Hammerwitt head is mounted. In other words, one machine was found to be capable of accomplishing what three milling systems had been needed for in previous tests: a narrow particle size spectrum and a high throughput.
A milling system that fulfilled all the customer’s specifications was finally installed. The Fredrive is mounted on a mobile lifting column to which a 100 l or 200 l container can be attached. The milling system is driven via a mobile container directly beneath it. This container can begin to be filled as soon as the mobile lifting column is at the right height against a vertical stop. The mobile milling system offers a number of advantages: for one thing, it can be connected anywhere in the process area. Since three different milling heads can be mounted to one and the same machine depending on the type of product or the milling process, the system is extremely economical with space.
The customer acquires a base module with three milling heads for only half the price of a conventional system. The time saving is another factor: the milling heads can be changed very quickly together with the prod-uct or cleaned easily as and when necessary thanks to the swing arm. Since the installation complies with high-containment guidelines, the product can be processed dust-free, so that both the product and the operator are optimally protected.
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