Reactor risk management is all about expecting the unexpected and minimising human process intervention helps to mitigate risk and keep operations safe.

Reactors are vital for most pharmaceutical and chemical processing plants as they are designed to safely contain chemical reactions and/or thermal changes of substances in a pressurised environment.

After the substance reaction has taken place the media inside the vessel is then discharged by some type of pump, scraper or actuator to any number of subsequent operations including condensing, separation, distillation, evaporation and weighing/packaging before ultimately being sent to a finishing process such as a tablet forming machine. Needless to state that if the substance is not reacted correctly inside the reactor then large amounts of time and money can be wasted by the subsequent process operations. Therefore, getting product reactions right, first and every time is the key to success.

Plant designers endeavour to ensure that the substances contained within the vessel react to the correct quality standard and at the highest efficiency. As with any process optimisation the first priority is to ensure safety and quality standards are not compromised. Then, plant designers must aim to produce the highest yield of product while spending the least amount of money to purchase and sustainably operate the reactors.

‘Sustainably operate’ is a key phrase. Above all the normal operating expenses such as energy input, energy removal, raw material costs and labour, is the issue of sustainable stakeholder safety is of paramount importance. Reactor risk management is all about expecting the unexpected and minimising human process intervention helps to mitigate risk and keep operations safe.

Probably the highest risk in the reactor process is taking a process media sample at elevated temperatures. This is major cause of concern for Pharmaceutical plants especially when taking the sample from a Reactor where the reaction is hazardous as found on practically all glass lined reactor applications. Spill over and exposure of sampling liquid is a perennial cause of batch rejection, reprocessing and various quality-related issues ultimately leading to personnel risk and lost profit.

Forward thinking plants are now standardising on reactor sampling systems, which are designed to provide automatic vacuum-operated safe sampling.

In India, Schematic Engineering Industries, located in Hyderabad, India and in the UK, are leading the way in this field with their innovative automated reactor sampling device.

In operation, a pre-established sample quantity is directly pulled into the sampling container by vacuum in a closed-loop manner. At all times, the operator is safe, isolated from the media and in full control. The innovative design is optical sensor powered and is offered with a clear sampling pot so that the operator can see exactly what is happening to the reacted substances at all stages of the reaction process. Furthermore, Distributed Control System (DCS) operation is also possible with the auto sampler and unlike conventional systems, cleaning of the sampling pot is easy, fast and risk-free.

Given the potentially hazardous nature of the substances inside stainless steel, exotic alloy and glass lined reactors, Schematic’s safe auto sampler is now fitted as a site-wide standard by many leading international pharmaceutical manufacturing companies for both new build plants/extensions as well as retro fits to all existing their reactors.

– ALAN J. RODDIS

(If you believe that your plant would benefit from safe, automatic reactor sampling at all stages of the reactor operation process including elevated temperatures and the use of highly corrosive solvents and aggressive compounds, without the risk of operator exposure, contact Schematic Engineering Industries, Hyderabad. Tel: 040-23094082. Email: info@schematicind.com)