Seals are immune to antiviral cream
A
SKF UK product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Feb 28, 2003
When pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline wanted to find a replacement for a troublesome seal on a machine that filled tubes of its antiviral cream Zovirax it called in Economos.
When pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline wanted to find a replacement for a troublesome seal on a machine that filled tubes of its antiviral cream Zovirax it called in Economos to help come up with a solution.
Seal failures on the filling machine were causing GSK problems in line downtime and waste product and polytetraflouroethylene (PTFE) seals were identified as the root cause.
The PTFE seals were unable to cope with binding agents in the cream such as saturated aliphatic hydrocarbon paraffins, which contain derivatives of fatty acids.
They could start to leak within two hours of being fitted and had to be renewed at least every four days.
Seals on the filling machines dosing pumps were not robust enough to withstand the demands of the three-shifts operation and the regime of pump dismantling, washout and reassembly.
Economos and GSK engineers examining the problem conducted intensive trials using different types of polyurethane-elastomer seals; H-Ecopur passed physicochemical testing to USP XXV 661.
It was soon found that seals made of its top-rated material H-Ecopur were lasting weeks on the production line, instead of the average two to three days with PTFE seals.
H-Ecopur is a hydrolysis-resistant polyurethane-elastomer, especially noted for its stability in mineral oils and for its suitability for use with biodegradable hydraulic fluids such as vegetable oils and synthetic esters.
H-Ecopur is already in use in the food and pharmaceutical industries, as it is KTW approved and meets FDA standards.
As an added bonus, GSK discovered that H-Ecopur seals also cost less than the PTFE seals they were using.
Sales and Marketing Director Paul Chambers said: "Solving the Zovirax production problem demonstrated several of the attributes which have made Economos market leader in the design and manufacture of seals, such as finding solutions to customers' individual problems, the benefits of the materials we use, and the superiority of seals which have been machined.
GSK will now have longer operational life from the machined H-Ecopur seals, along with increased savings from reduced down time.
I would say that's not a bad result".
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