Isolators and Gloveboxes designed to achieve Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) down to 10 ng/m3 (8hr TWA).
The development of increasingly potent pharmaceutical products and potentially toxic materials and chemicals has led to the need for increased operator protection from exposure to harmful dusts.
Hosokawa Micron Ltd. has in response developed a range of high containment enclosures named Stott Isolators and Gloveboxes. Stott pharmaceutical isolators create a physical barrier between the operator and the product, enabling ‘shirt sleeve’ operation without the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Stott isolators are available for both manual and automated handling/processing procedures and can be provided in single units or multi-cell variants, where defined barriers separate individual processes and offer complete operator safety and product integrity.
The isolators and gloveboxes are ideal for such critical processes as milling, micronizing, drying, dispensing, and product pack-off. They provide much needed protection for operators against toxic pharamceuticals and other hazardous materials.
Our Stott isolators and gloveboxes can be designed to contain either Hosokawa or third-party processing equipment such as micronizers, tray dryers, granulators, etc. Hosokawa’s range of equipment can be designed bespoke for installation within an isolator to offer a highly engineered, contained processing solution.
If you require a lower cost alternative or a shorter lead time for testing, trials or production processes, the Mobile ‘plug and play’ Isolators offer containment levels <1µg/m³.
The design of Hosokawa containment systems for the nuclear and associated industries is heavily influenced by our extensive experience of GMP containment system design for the pharmaceutical industry. Primary considerations for such systems are:
Integration of processing equipment in isolators, gloveboxes, and containment systems is carried out so as best to avoid contamination of drive systems and other parts which would be difficult to clean, reduce the hazard to personnel during maintenance, and increase the reliability and lifespan of equipment. This is typically achieved by using through-wall designs where the drive system is mounted in a technical enclosure which is isolated from the processing area.
In nuclear containment systems, similar design principles apply; crevices and areas where material can collect should be avoided. In some cases, there may be a risk of reaching a critical mass of material which can become unstable, so all material brought into the system must be accounted for.
Nuclear containment systems are typically designed for a lifespan of 25 years, and the proper integration of process equipment as described above will help to reduce maintenance and increase reliability. If equipment is contaminated with any radioactive material it cannot simply be cleaned and removed from the containment as with pharmaceutical systems.
Class I nuclear gloveboxes are designed to achieve a leak-tightness of better than 0.05% volume per hour, compared to our standard pharmaceutical standard of 0.5% volume per hour.
Hosokawa Micron offer a range of off the shelf and bespoke Isolator containment options to suit individual requirements. We work with customers to develop the right containment solution from individual units to fully integrated systems.
