A manufacturer of pharmaceutical machinery have been using AKO Pinch Valves as a vital part to one of their machine types since 2014. This particular machine controls the flow of pharmaceutical tablets from an IBC container, with the Pinch Valves having the ability to close off the tube.
Valves for Pharmaceutical Tablets Application Details:
Media passing through the Pinch Valves: Pharmaceutical tablets.
Temperature: Controlled ambient working temperature.
Pressure: Gravity fed from IBC container.
The Pinch Valves are normally open, and are kept open for the whole time until the IBC container is empty.
No vacuum pressure is used.
Amount of air being used to close the Pinch Valve: 4 BAR.
(Only 2 – 2.5 BAR above the line pressure is required to fully close off an AKO Pinch Valve, so the company were advised to regulate the pressure down to generate a longer lifetime from the sleeve).
Valves for Pharmaceutical Tablets Experience
The company have experience with using Butterfly Valves on their machines, but found that the disc from the butterfly valve was damaging the product if it closed during tablet feed.
The food quality FDA approved Pinch Valves supplied by AKO (product code VMC80.02X.50T.30LX) have a soft rubber seat which pinches closed, and does not damage or affect the tablets in any way.
Pinch Valve used within this application: VMC80.02X.50T.30LX
VMC model, air operated, aluminium body, stainless steel tri-clamp end connections, white food quality natural rubber sleeve.
So far, the company have been using AKO Pinch Valves for 3-4 years and everything is working well within the application. The rubber sleeves inside the valves for pharmaceutical tablets (product code M080-02X) have not yet needed to be changed, and are expected to perform many more cycles over a number of coming years, providing there are no drastic changes to the application.
See how to replace the rubber sleeve inside an AKO Pinch Valve.
Standard solenoid valves are used with the Pinch Valves on these machines.
