Handling and packaging in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and chemical industries can prove difficult when products prone to producing dust not only have the danger of contaminating other products, but can also cause atmospheric pollution in sensitive areas of production lines if not handled correctly. There are a number of ways to tackle this issue, but one of the most effective proves to be the use of vibrating tubular feeders for dust tight conveying.
Mitigating dangerous product or areas
In many chemical handling applications, mitigating the risk of potentially dangerous dust clouds is top priority. The dust tight construction and robust design of tubular feeders ensure that all material remains within the equipment at all times. Hazardous area drives can also be used within high risk lines.
Designed to suit pre-existing or planned process line
Simple flexible sleeves can be used to allow product flow from a feeder to other processing equipment, and as such a tubular feeder is suitable for feeding to mixers, weighers, vibrating sieves and screens. A buffer hopper can allow any specific batch to be metered in a controlled rate and, when used with an electromagnetic drive unit, excellent stop/start control over a product can be achieved for use in product weighing applications.
Tubular feeders can be designed in full stainless steel pharmaceutical quality construction, with no internal components such as conveying screw flights. This means that they are entirely crack and crevice free and have no internal components that need to be dealt with separately – resulting in a very easy and time effective clean down.
Easy clean down to achieve hygiene standards
With thorough and efficient clean down incredibly important in order to achieve both pharmaceutical hygiene standards and production efficiency, quick release dust tight end plates can be designed and manufactured for the units, ensuring that product is fully contained during running time but easily opened up for clean down and inspection when required.
Tubular feeders can be designed and manufactured in a variety of lengths and diameters, and provide a range of throughputs to suit the specific application and product to be handled. If your application is in need of efficient dust tight conveying, a vibrating tubular feeder could provide the perfect solution.