Decontamination: straight to the finish line

Substantial increase of machine availability for pharmaceutical machinery with reduced H2O2 consumption

The DECOjet® technology of Metall + Plastic combines direct injection nozzles in the manipulation unit with the H₂O₂ gassing between the CG membrane and HEPA filter. Based on CFC simulations, H₂O₂ will be introduced at places that have low H₂O₂ concentration. The result is a defined and quick distribution of H₂O₂ while, at the same time, using a reduced amount of H₂O₂. Metall + Plastic filed a patent for this technology, that decreases the injection time thus resulting in a reduction of up to 50 percent of the decontamination time for the entire decontamination cycle. This means pharmaceutical machinery is available for production much faster. In addition, the reduced H₂O₂ quantity is saver for the material. The DECOjet will also minimize the gas release effect and can be retrofitted in Metall + Plastic isolators that are designed according to the “open loop” principle or integrated in new isolators.

Potential worst case locations were determined during a flow simulation for the evaporated H2O2. The red color shows the high H2O2 concentration and the blue color stands for low concentrations. These realizations have been integrated into the final design of the new process.

The design of the injection nozzles has been optimized during the development process.

Studies confirm the effectiveness of the DECOjet technology: during a customer project the H₂O₂ injection phase was reduced from 57 to 33 minutes and the total consumption was reduced by 43 percent. A comparison of 39 identical BI- locations that were decontaminated with and without the DECOjet technology in a manipulation unit, resulted in a worstcase locations, in average D-values of 5.7 minutes with the conventional process and 3.3 minutes with the DECOjet technology.

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