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Multi-port valve blocks simplify plant design

Predestined for pharmaceutical water plants
Multi-port valve blocks simplify plant design

Gemü has been manufacturing sterile, multi-port valve blocks made of stainless steel for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries for over 20 years. It would no longer be possible to meet the complex demands of modern plant engineering, or to satisfy end customer requirements such as minimal dead legs and good cleanability, without this continuously developing technology. Vetter has used multi-port valve blocks made of stainless steel in their pharmaceutical water and distribution systems for a long time now, representing modern plant design.

Author Mareike Monninger Application Specialist, Gemü Gebr. Müller Apparatebau

These valve blocks are practically used as standard today in sterile plant engineering, while still being designed and manufactured to customer specifications for their respective applications. Compared to conventional plants engineering, the space requirements for process plant can be greatly reduced by using multi-port valve blocks. To this end, several diaphragm valves and pipe sections are packed into the smallest possible space to form an optimised draining unit, combining various functions for controlling liquids and gases. Multiple functions such as blending, distribution, feeding, removal, draining and cleaning can be implemented in an individual block design. Sensors, filters and check valves can also be integrated. All this saves on complicated piping systems and weld seams and minimises dead legs.
Used for pure and ultra pure water
Vetter is an international specialist in the development and aseptic filling of medicines into syringes, cartridges and vials. This also includes syringes with dual chamber systems, which are first flushed with purified water (PW) and water for injection (WFI) and then blow dried, siliconised, autoclaved, filled in the cleanroom and finally freeze-dried. Ultra pure water likewise plays an important role in the end prod-uct, as the content of such a syringe consists of 99.5 % water and only 0.5 % active substance. However, specification-compliant water is needed, particularly during the production process itself, but also during all CIP and SIP processes (cleaning and sterilisation in place), and it is imperative that this water is continuously available. A wide range of Gemü multi-port valve block versions are used in the treatment and distribution plants.
Compact plant design
For water treatment, the inflowing town water is first softened by ion exchange. The soft water is desalinated in downstream reverse osmosis, being fed into the membrane carriers under high pressure. For residual desalination, the resulting permeate is then passed to the electrodeionisation modules. While flowing through these modules, the ions still contained in the permeate are almost completely removed and the draining diluate is conveyed into two storage tanks. After these three processing stages, the clean water now has PW quality in accordance with USP as well as a conductivity of <0.9 µS/cm. The PW is fed from the two tanks to the twelve loops via pump systems and additional filter units. These lead from the pure media centre in the basement via the suspended ceilings (above the production level) to the individual production departments and laboratories. After the last tapping point, they open into the tank.
The multi-port valve blocks now come into play, in particular for distributing the PW. As a tapping point often has several inlets and outlets, its many connections and valves would require a considerable amount of space using conventional designs. A multi-port valve, on the other hand, combines all functions such as sampling, condensate drainage, pure steam infeed and the actual extraction in a single component. Condensate drainage provides low point drainage following sterilisation with pure steam. The tapping point is either a manual or a pneumatic Gemü diaphragm valve. PW is required, for example, for the various washing machines and cleaning installations as well as in the homogeniser, CIP equipment and freeze-drying plants, autoclaves and sinks in the laboratories. A loop supplies the in-house steam generator and the four pure steam generators. PW is fed via an additional loop to the three distilleries for the production of WFI. Here, too, multi-port valve blocks with PW drainage, sampling and condensate drainage functions are installed.
Good cleanability
WFI is obtained from one part of the PW using the multiple-stage distillation principle. Its conductivity subsequently equals only 0.1 to 0.2 µS/cm. The WFI is conveyed to two storage tanks but, in contrast to PW, is stored hot (over +80 °C) and distributed via pump systems and ten loops while maintaining the turbulent flow. This WFI helps produce preparations and carry out the final rinse. Before flowing back into the storage tanks, the WFI is reheated by heat exchangers.
When distributing the WFI, good cleanability of the plant is another important factor, which is why, in many instances, multi-port valve blocks are used here, too. Small, multi-port valve blocks are ideal, amongst other things, at sampling points or condensate drains. The multi-port valve contains several valve seats, for example if drainage, sampling, compressed air and pure steam infeed plus condensate drainage are required in one place. Multi-port valve blocks are also installed at the cold tapping points, as cold WFI is needed for pharmaceutical applications and laboratory trials. For this purpose, heat exchangers connected upstream and downstream of the tapping points cool the WFI (+15 to +45 °C) and then heat it up again before it is fed back into the loop.
Decisive advantage
Matthias Wolpert has been a design engineer at Gemü for 17 years. He deals with the needs of customers and designs individual solutions on a daily basis. He recalls the early days: “Enquiries used to arrive by fax, at a time when the 3-D-CAD sizing software was still in the early stages of development. Over the years, there has been a growing demand for dead leg optimised solutions. This has resulted in increasingly complex multi-port valve blocks. Today, our machinery can process blocks up to 600 mm long. Over a thousand different designs and more than twelve thousand versions are registered in our system.”
Dietmar Waizmann, a production engineer at Vetter in Langenargen, sees many advantages in the use of multi-port valve blocks: “The appearance of Gemü’s no-dead leg, multi-port valve blocks alone has given us a considerable edge during regular audits as a contract manufacturer. This is because the auditors themselves have long considered these to be standard in pharmaceutical applications. In addition, the amount of work involved for documentation has been dramatically reduced, for example due to the omission of several weld seams. When you consider all the benefits, the price difference compared with conventional solutions using single valves is no longer relevant.”
Hall 8.0, Booth F4
cpp-net.com/0215407
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