Ionpure speeds up hot water

Continuous electrodeionisation (CEDI) has been widely adopted by the pharmaceutical industry, with more than 600 installations in place. Every major manufacturer now uses CEDI polishing, following reverse osmosis, in the final stage of water treatment before storage.

Favoured because there is no chemical regeneration requirement and systems are easy to validate, leak-free and reliable, CEDI modules can also incorporate hot water sanitisation (HWS) to provide bacteria control. Taking the refinement of HWS a stage further, Ionpure Technologies has launched the LX HWS-I module, which cuts the conventional HWS cycle time by more than half. It also affords simpler process control during sanitisation, which leads to easier validation.

Ionpure has demonstrated that with the new HWS-I (Hot Water Sanitisable - Instant) module, water at 85°C and 2bar can be fed instantaneously and quickly switched back to cool feed. The time now required for module sanitisations is approximately 90 minutes as opposed to more than three hours. 'Other hot water sanitisable CEDI modules require a gradual increase in temperature at the beginning of the sanitisation process and then a gradual decrease in temperature at the end,' says Steve Willis, European business manager for Ionpure Technologies.

An added benefit of the instant sanitisation process is the reduced complexity of controls and equipment at the CEDI system level, which equates to simplified IQ and OQ during system validation, the company claims.'

The new module is guaranteed by Ionpure to operate leak free and to complete more than 150 sanitisations, at 85°C, with no adverse effects. There is no need for periodic tightening of the module's tie rods.