Sterilising & Dehydrogenation Tunnel

This type of continuous sterilizer is a fully automated system specially designed which utilizes dry heat by means of forced convection of filtered air, through high efficiency particulate air filter to achieve sterilization and dehydrogenation of washed empty pharmaceutical glassware used of parenteral product packing.

SALIENT FEATURES

• In fewer than 30 minutes, an untreated vial goes from ampoule/vial washer to sterilizing tunnel to cleanroom, entering in a sterilized microorganism- and pyrogen-free state
• Requires no operator intervention or recontamination
• Typical operating temperature of the tunnel is 320°C
• Heat is generated by silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) heating elements
• Depending on the format, vials stay inside the sterilizing/dehydrogenation chamber for approximately 6-10 minutes
• No format parts are required
• This is essentially a set-it-and-forget-it automatic process
• There are 3 chambers: pre-heating chamber, sterilizing chamber, and cooling chamber
• Chambers of the tunnel are separated by gates and the height is automatically set by the PLC as part of the vial recipe
• HEPA filters are tested for efficiency by the “DOP” test procedure (each chamber of the tunnel has provisions to conduct the DOP test)
• Each chamber is equipped with a pipe below the filters to allow for particle counting