The Lighthouse Probe™ can be used for real-time monitoring of chemical and pharmaceutical processes and provides in-process window cleaning at any time, recalibration during the process, full CIP of wash housing and seal, and a clear view inside – even in difficult conditions.
The Lighthouse Probe™ can be used for real-time monitoring of chemical and pharmaceutical processes and provides in-process window cleaning at any time, recalibration during the process, full CIP of wash housing and seal, and a clear view inside – even in difficult conditions.
Compact & Cleanable In-process Optical Probe
The biggest flaw of optical spectroscopy is the dependency on a clean observation window. When this so-called window fouling occurs during process, it will eventually lead to wrong analysis results, unwanted process stops and bad product quality. Since on-line and in-line optical analysis becomes more and more important today, reliable and robust systems, capable of overcoming this flaw are needed.
Though various vendors made attempts to overcome the issue using window heating and blow off systems, none of these ‘solutions’ seemed to work over longer time span. And all of them had the same flaw: once the fouling occurred, there was no way of recovering. To ensure an optical detection that can overcome these issues and check it’s status during the process, the Lighthouse Probe™ was developed. The probe has window cleaning capabilities and an internal reference to overcome a second frequently encountered issue namely reference contamination. Both these functions can be used in process without breaking containment.
The Lighthouse Probe™ comes in 2 different types:
The probes can be upgraded from manual to automated CIP alongside with the development of your product from laboratory to production. They can be delivered matching a variety of spectrometers.
Example:
During the FAT of a Consigma™ tableting line, the Lighthouse Probe™ was used for on-line moisture analysis: The moisture of the final granulate was available in real time while off-line lab analysis took one week to analyze only one third of the samples (time savings).
The difference in resources savings consumption during that same FAT was 2 man-week of lab analysis (and lab-consumables).
Because of the direct availability of the analyzer data, deviation from the desired quality is detected immediately and corrections were made based on that data and the process moved back to optimal quality before even going out of spec. The offline analysis of one sample took 12 minutes (optimal case) so the minimal waste in case of a bad result in case of off-line analysis is 5 kg (throughput of the machine being 25kg/hr) (material savings)
The Lighthouse Probe™ provides:
The Lighthouse Probe™ will develop further to a platform enabling PAT. Various developments are taking place simultaneously and more and more suppliers of optical analytical methods are joining.
Ongoing developments:
Lighthouse Probe™ - DAD
High Shear Granulation Endpoint Detection
For initial test work or for mobile test equipment, a manual probe is suggested while automated wash and CIP probes are designed for production.
For single pot processing including drying, a CIP probe is advised combined with a complete integration to change models between granulation and drying regime.
The LightHouse Probe™ fits on a standard 2” port, standard adaptor or weld-in ports can be provided. It is available as manual probe, automated wash probe and automated CIP probe.
Genzyme reduces probe fouling and improves NIR data using the Lighthouse Probe™.
Genzyme, one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, was looking for a PAT solution to control the high shear granulation of a development product by measuring a critical product attribute, rather than relying purely on time based processing or impeller current loading. The company used an optimized Lighthouse Probe™ to get representative NIR data of a granulation process. Read the article to learn how the data was then correlated to moisture content, bulk/tapped density and particle size of the final product.
Lighthouse Probe™ - NDC
Efficient Moisture measurement in fluidized bed dryers
The Online LOD sensor is a LightHouse Probe™ equipped with an NDC PF710e gauge.
The probe can be mounted by welding a port into the vessel or alternatively by replacing a window with a specific adaptor.
The LightHouse Probe™ is available as manual probe, automated wash probe and automated CIP probe.
A highly integrated solution for continuous linear blending and direct compression, the ConsiGma® DC-LB lines offer all the advantages of continuous manufacturing: supply chain agility, small footprint, controlled blending and compression and improved quality.
Highly integrated solutions for continuous wet granulation, drying and tablet compression, the ConsiGma® GC lines offer all the advantages of continuous manufacturing: supply chain agility, small footprint, controlled granulation and improved quality.
GEA supplies fluid bed processors (known as fluid bed Multi-Processor™ in the USA) for blending, granulating, drying, pelletizing and coating for the pharmaceutical industry.
Whether the customer’s requirement is for high shear mixing or granulation, GEA has a solution for every processing challenge and can help select the technology that is most suitable for your Pharma application.
GEA is uniquely qualified to provide integrated pharmaceutical process lines. Drawing on its world-class expertise and technologies, we offer an entire range of state-of-the-art process equipment that has been designed and built with system integration in mind.
PMA™ High Shear and PMA-Advanced™ Mixer and Granulator is a multipurpose processor that's equally suitable for the high speed dispersion of dry powders, aqueous or solvent granulations, effervescent production and melt pelletization for Pharma applications.
UltimaPro™ Single Pot Processors (One-Pot Processor) offer a choice of mixing, granulation and drying options integrated into one processing vessel. With our help, choose the most appropriate technique for the product.
在早期研究和配方开发期间,活性成分的可用性通常十分有限,因此要求加工设备可以只生产几百克的产品供开发新药品配方使用。为了响应这种需求,GEA 开发出了 ConsiGma™ 1,这是 ConsiGma™ 概念的实验室规模版本。