Gold Series Camtain for pharmaceutical manufacturing application

• The Gold Series (GS) Camtain units can be used in a variety of pharmaceutical dust collector applications, including tablet presses, coating, fluid bed drying, spray drying, blending, granulation and general room ventilation.
• The GS Camtain is perfect for high-efficiency filtration where recovery of the product is not required.
• Safe-change containment systems are available for both the filter cartridges and discharge system underneath the collector. The cartridge change utilizes the safe-change filter replacement method, while the discharge uses continuous liner technology.
• The GS Camtain can also support traditional dust collection for nuisance dusts and fumes that do not require full isolation and containment.
• Camfil APC has containment dust collectors for pharmaceutical applications in North, South, and Central America, Asia and Europe.

Benefits

• In the GS Camtain pharmaceutical dust collector, filter cartridges are sealed via an internal cam bar action, allowing convenient change out through the safe-change filter replacement system.
• High-entry, cross flow inlet eliminates upward velocities that can hold fine particulates in the filter cartridges, reducing the re-entrainment of the particulate matter.
• Vertically arranged filters shed virtually all the particles, versus horizontal filters, which allow the particles to build on top of the filter in high dust loading applications.
• High-efficiency filters up to MERV 16 stop 99.99% of the dust at 0.5 microns!
• Specially treated filter media repels fine particulates for a lower pressure drop and longer filter life.
• Gold Cone cartridge filter design provides 25% more media for long service life. HemiPleat filter technology ensures uniform pleat spacing with synthetic beads that hold the pleats of the filter cartridge wide open.

Health and Safety considerations
Two key concerns are critical when handling pharmaceutical dusts: the potent, toxic or allergenic properties of the compound as it relates to personnel exposure and the explosion properties of the compound.

Health and Containment
The first issue involves understanding the toxicological properties of the material, reviewing the occupational exposure limit (OEL) and performing a risk-based exposure evaluation to determine the methods for proper control. In most cases, some level of isolation and containment is required due to the fact that the pharmaceutical dust is extremely potent while being captured in a non-production area. Therefore, it cannot be released into the surrounding environment.

In most cases, Camfil APC recommends a HEPA secondary polishing system. With HEPA backup systems and the dust collector, recirculation of the filter air back into the HVAC system is possible. This can significantly reduce energy costs while providing the necessary level of filtration for discharge air required by the EPA.

Safety
The second concern involves deflagration and explosion potential. Control measures such as explosion venting, chemical suppression and isolation systems may be required depending on the physical characteristics of the dust relating to Kst, MIE and the location of the collector.

When explosion vents are required, they must be vented to the outside by either placing the collector outdoors or ducting the vent exhaust a specified distance through the building structure. To prevent outdoor or off-property exposure in the event of a dust explosion of potent compounds, either chemical suppression or containment designs for explosion and isolation valves are preferable to venting. The reason why is because these two protection options do not release materials to the environment.

Camfil APC recommends that an independent PE specifies what explosion protection is required for a given material as it relates to standards in NFPA, ATEX and the major insurance carriers.

Learn more at www.camfil.com.