Innovations In Vacuum Integrity Testing Containment Valves

By Chris Eccles

Introduction

Many of today’s pharmaceutical and chemical processes are faced with the requirements of operating under minimum oxygen and vacuum-sealed environments.

Achieving these conditions can be quite challenging and generally the ability to sustain a satisfactory environment is limited to the manufacturing systems and interface equipment being used. This compromise can at worst be catastrophic, resulting in uncontrolled reactions or reduced productivity where achieving the satisfactory conditions can be very time consuming.

In a typical reactor or vessel charging application, the product being transferred would originate either from a hopper, container or a pre-stage process unit. In order to reach the required vacuum state and inert atmosphere within the processing environment, an isolation/containment transfer valve is used. These isolation devises need to be suitably validated to verify their vacuum and leak rate capabilities.