The R+D team at Telstar has developed and implemented an automatic Clean-in-Place (CIP) system for lyophilisers that is said to reduce water consumption by up to 75%.
The savings provided by this new CIP system, which will be available for integration into all of Telstar's industrial lyophilisers, is the result of improvements to the equipment's mechanical design and control software to obtain improved cleaning functionality while optimising water consumption.
The system takes full advantage of the movement of the shelf stack to clean the chamber walls, the instrument and service connection ports, the chamber-condenser isolation valve and the slot door by a sweep water jet effect. In addition, the cleaning cycle is comprised of several independent steps to reduce the required capacity of the impulsion pump and thereby reduce water consumption. The system has been optimised to minimise the retained volume of water while in ‘recirculation’ mode and to reduce the spraying time in ‘once-through’ operation. The new design also minimises the distribution system internal to the equipment and significantly reduces the number of spray nozzles and consequently the water flow rate.
Through these improvements, Telstar says it has reduced the total consumption of cleaning water in all of its industrial lyophilisers equipped with integrated CIP systems to less than 700 litres of water for equipment with a shelf capacity of 4m2 and less than 1,600 litres for a unit with 40m2 loading surface while still meeting required standards of cleanliness.