Innovative Valve Interfaces Ensure Customized Productivity In B. Braun LIFE Nutrition Plant

Jens Voigtländer, Editor

B. Braun Melsungen AG is one of the leading companies in the international pharmaceutical and medication sector. With an investment of 164 million Euros the company is currently building the LIFE Nutrition plant, one of the world’s most modern production sites for innovative nutrition solutions, at the company headquarters in the North Hessian city of Melsungen. Solutions for clinical nutrition such as amino acid solutions, carbohydrate solutions and fat emulsions are manufactured and packaged in two production lines at the new manufacturing facility with an integrated lab. After more than five years of planning and construction and an extensive test phase, the plant is scheduled to start full-time production in the spring of 2012.

The new factory was built in the direct vicinity of the LIFE plant, Europe‘s most modern infusion solution factory, which started production in the year 2005. The planning team in the new plant included the in-house engineers and specialists from the planning and consulting company Chemgineering commissioned by B. Braun with the project as well as the operators of the LIFE plant from the very beginning. They contributed their experience from daily operations and were able to point out problems and weak points already during the conception phase.

The special challenges in the planning of LIFE Nutrition included the requirement of B. Braun for construction of the new plant in a building that is architecturally identical to that of the older LIFE plant. Despite equal spatial conditions, the new production facilities needed to be significantly more efficient and flexible. During the search for innovative, space-saving solutions for the complex valve interfaces required for the production technology, Chemgineering contacted the fluid technology specialist Bürkert, among others, in the spring of 2008. With the multi-port valve Robolux Bürkert has a patented solution in its portfolio for achieving very complex and compact valve interfaces with a low internal volume. Within a few weeks and based on the specifications, Bürkert developed models for the first, especially complex valve interfaces, which were professionally visualized and presented with the help of modern 3D PDF files. “The advantages of a Robolux multi-port system in comparison with conventional single-layer valve interfaces and ring systems were literally evident at first glance”, says Alexander Equit, National Key Account Manager for Pharma, Biotech and Fine Chemistry at Bürkert.