FilDry – Optimisation of Pharmaceutical Filtration and Drying Process

FilDry is a laboratory device for the investigation of filtration and drying processes for the chemical process development and scale-up or scale-down.

FilDry is a filter and paddle dryer based on SYSTAG automated laboratory equipment. Apart of the straightforward temperature- and vacuum control all other basic operations like filtration, washing, re-slurrying and drying optimisation are built into this new and revolutionary filter dryer. The configuration with customised reactor design makes the filtration and drying optimisation simple and easy. FilDry is a discontinuous liquid / solid separator with built in vacuum dryer, also under vacuum and at different temperatures. Tracking of filtration speed and drying process is given by the built in weighing system for mother liquid or recondensed solvents. Dual propose agitator with lift automatic enables an efficient re-slurrying and proper cake washing whereby the stirrer positioning is used for a smooth wipe off of the solids to prevent any cracking of the filter cake.

The high degree of functionality and the added customised options allow this concept to meet the different demands in filtration or down-scaling of a wide range of applications.

Usage as an agitated filter dryer

• Filtration under controlled Nitrogen pressure
• Washing of the filter cake by displacement or suspending wash
• Dual purpose agitator with lift automatic
• During the filtration and washing step the stirrer is used to smooth down the cake surface to prevent cracking of the filter cake
• During the drying step the stirrer is used to break the filter cake and to suppress lump formation

Usage as a paddle dryer

• Simple exchange of the filter plate for a base plate and insertion of a baffle
• Direct loading of the good into the lowered vessel
• Drying under controlled vacuum and temperature condition

Further advantages

• Logging of all physical process data
• Filtration: Tracking of the filtration speed by weighing the mother liquid during the filtration (for calculation of the filtration constant)
• Drying: Tracking of the drying process by weighing the recondensed solvent
• Control system: Equipment with specific user interface. Manual or recipe control process control. Intuitive and easy to learn recipe editor (drag and drop) and therefore short initial training duration. Automatic lab journal based on Microsoft Word. Worldwide remote support via Internet.
• Easy definition of standard operation procedures (SOP)