A Pharmaceutical Research & Development Company approached Tapflo UK, working in partnership with Tapflo Ireland, to design and manufacture a bespoke fully Automated ATEX Trolley Batching System which required minimal operator involvement.
Application Overview
In partnership with our colleagues at Tapflo Ireland, we were contacted by a Pharmaceutical Research & Development company to design, develop and manufacture a bespoke, fully Automated ATEX Trolley Batching System to dose between 1 and 3 litres (+/- 10%) of purified water into a reactor vessel during production, with minimal operator involvement.
Due to the expensive nature of the products that they manufacture, the customer had to ensure a high level of accuracy, repeatability and reliability, and therefore wanted to employ very specific operating procedures and checks to ensure that the pump system was fully primed, the tank they were pumping into was the correct one and that the dosed amount was within their agreed tolerance.
Design Details
In order to achieve this criteria, the system has been designed as a precise dosing system which utilises a TX30 to pump small quantities (less than 3kg) of the required fluid into process vessels. It utilises a 3-point verification system to confirm the quantity of fluid pumped. The system is initially controlled using double stroke sensors, which are mounted directly to the pump, and register each individual stroke of the pump. With AODD pumps being positive displacement pumps, the volume of each pump is consistent and calculatable. Therefore, the strokes are a set volume which allows for accurate pumping off the strokes alone.
To ensure the quantity pumped is accurate, we also installed an oval gear flow meter and a set of 4 load cells on to the corners of the system to measure the total weight of the fluid pumped from the system. The entire system is trolley mounted, making it portable which allows for easier manoeuvring around site, to different process vessels.
The trolley consists of 2 main fabricated components – the trolley base which provides support for the load cells and houses the main junction boxes for the system. There is a secondary “floating” base which has an inbuilt drip tray and drain, as well as storage space for 2x vessels:
- 1x process vessel for housing the virgin liquid
- 1x drain tank to drain any fluid used to prime the system into
These two tanks ensure a closed system and allows for the load cells to be highly accurate when measuring the weight of the fluid pumped from the system.
On the pumps discharge is a check valve and a pneumatically controlled 3-way ball valve which directs the fluid from the small process vessel on board to either the drain tank during the priming operation, or the larger process vessel off system for the main dosing application.
The pump and 3-way ball valve is electronically controlled using solenoid valves which allows for the sites systems to easily and accurately control the systems on the trolley. The trolley also has a tank identification system which allows the sites systems to know which tank the trolley is dosing into, allowing for better quality standards throughout.
There are also a few fail safes built into the electrical system which, if the system isn’t connected correctly, will not allow the system to work.
System Overview
- TX30 STT ¾” Sanitary Air Operated Diaphragm Pump w/ Dual Stroke Sensors
- Portable trolley system with “floating” drip tray with drain point
- 20 litre process tank
- 20 litre drain tank
- Sanitary Oval Gear Flowmeter
- Flow Rate Indicator & Totaliser
- Load cells
- Check valve on discharge
- Solenoid operated pneumatic 3 way ball valve
- Solenoid operated air supply
- 3 point verification of weight pumped
- Fail safe operation
- Swivel castors
- Removable handle
Render to Reality
