News

Posted On: 09/26/2004

PAT-Inspired Partnership Offers Uninterrupted, Wireless Blender Readings

A partnership between leading manufacturers of IBC blending equipment and sensory technology promises to allow real-time, wireless product evaluation during the blending process. The collaboration also provides a glimpse of the future in terms of how companies can work together to offer state-of-the art process analytical technologies (PAT) solutions.

Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC) maker Tote Systems International (Burleson, Texas) and thermal sensor manufacturer Mathis Instruments (Fredericton, New Brunswick) have joined forces to allow users to monitor the blending process via sensors mounted on the IBC covers. Under the new configuration, Mathis effusivity sensors are mounted on the lid of the Tote IBC, while a control box containing software and electronics for wireless transmission is mounted on the blender cradle. As the cycle begins and the blender rotates the IBC, the sensors seamlessly read the product cascading within, without the additional hassle, time, and costs of stopping the blender and using traditional methods of analysis.

Nancy Mathis, CEO and president of Mathis, says her customers have been chomping at the bit to use Mathis sensors wirelessly to get real-time readings. The partnership serves to ease the fears customers have of retrofitting their equipment. “Any time you cut holes in your blender, it has to be re-validated and this causes customers real concern,” notes Mathis. Under the partnership, customers get the additional benefit of Tote support and expertise in retrofitting equipment and integrating the technology with their current manufacturing processes.

Wade Meyer, director of business development for Tote, sees great potential in the technology for further enhancing PAT environments. “Right now, it’s an evaluation tool,” Meyer says. “We see it as eventually becoming a control tool.” The sensors could, for instance, signal equipment to stop when a batch was finished. The effusivity tool sees not only the physical blending characteristics but the effect of lubrication as well.

This wireless blending advancement joins Mathis’s existing applications in the characterization of incoming materials, wet granulation monitoring, and thorough evaluation of the drying process. The product is now in beta testing with four companies—AstraZeneca, Wyeth, Patheon, and cosmetics firm Estee Lauder—and will be available commercially in April 2005. This may just be the tip of the iceberg for such PAT-inspired collaborations. “It’s not just a partnership between Mathis and Tote,” says Mathis. “It has industry-wide applications. Others can look at what we’ve done and use this as a starting point. They don’t have to start at Stonehenge.”