With the approval of medicinal cannabis by NICE, the cannabis pharmaceutical industry faces the critical challenge of cleaning its cannabis manufacturing equipment.
A global leader in developing cannabinoid-based medicines approached Layton Technologies for a solution to this highly complex issue.
The client’s production process included an extremely specialised filtration method. Previously, after each batch of product, the chemical processing plant was stripped down and cleaned. Namely, process filtration units were cleaned manually with a combination of water, ethanol and compressed air or nitrogen.
As its manufacture of the medicine reached full production phase, the client recognized its system needed improvement. The labour-intensive nature of the process needed to be decreased, manual cleaning downtime needed to be reduced, and cannabis processing units needed to be returned to the processing plant ready for re-use. Furthermore, plant personnel needed to be protected from exposure to processing by-products.
Layton Technologies was tasked by the client with designing a new system to clean heavily contaminated units to the required medical standards. The new process needed to reduce process time and downtime. In addition, it had to be reliable, repeatable, and automated. It needed to offer improved process control and data collection. Crucially, it needed to protect plant personnel by automating a risky manual process and reducing chemical exposure.
Layton’s project timeline included the following:
⦁ Extensive, customer-witnessed trials were conducted to rationalise the current process into a single-stage system using ethanol at elevated and precisely controlled temperatures to ensure a clean and dry end product.
⦁ Tests were developed with the client to ensure that all contamination removed (cannabis-based material) could be accounted for.
⦁ A comprehensive Technical Proposal was produced to document the ability of the new system to meet the requirements of the project.
Layton’s documentation and test results were accepted by the client as an acceptable alternative to the current process. Following the client’s issue of the purchase order, Layton’s in-house design team produced a comprehensive Design Documentation Package, which included a general arrangement diagram, a piping and instrumentation diagram, a functional design specification, a software design specification and a comprehensive Project Plan.
At the same time as the main system design and manufacture, Layton undertook the design, development and manufacture of a specialized fixture to hold the components and to optimise the cleaning and drying process.
The final design resulted in a new, fully automated, low-emission flammable solvent cleaning and drying system, complete with Layton’s unique 5-year warranty.
For more information contact Layton Technologies www.laytontechnologies.com +441782370400
marketing@laytontechnologies.com