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Maintaining productivity and product quality while improving process safety and controlling operational costs, is a constant challenge for the pharmaceutical industry.
Conditions found in chemical API production are often harsh, risking operator safety and impacting production equipment. For in-line pH sensors, extreme production processes can result in poisoning of the sensor reference system and/or clogging of its diaphragm. The consequence is incorrect and sluggish measurements that can affect productivity and product quality.
Regular maintenance is required to keep sensors clean and calibrated. But maintenance can risk technician exposure to hazardous conditions, is time consuming, and knowing when it should be performed is usually not clear. Therefore, it is important to have robust pH sensors with diagnostics that tell you when to re-calibrate a sensor, clean it, and replace it when it is necessary.
METTLER TOLEDO's Intelligent Sensor Management (ISM) technology is a process analytics platform that combines the advantages of in-line analytical measurements with modern digital technology. Its features include advanced diagnostic tools that clearly show operators what sensor maintenance will be required and when it should be performed.
This white paper explains the role of ISM in improving productivity and operator process safety in manufacturing of APIs and summarizes how to replace, recalibrate or clean a sensor without interrupting the manufacturing process.
As with many chemical processes, manufacturing APIs is usually conducted under harsh conditions. This affects productivity and lifetime of sensors, which leads to poor batch-to-batch consistency and performance. ISM technology can have various benefits to production including increased process reliability, reduced risks to operators, and lower overall annual costs.
ISM sensors can be used throughout R&D, process development and full-scale manufacturing. Such harmonization of pH sensors not only reduces analytics costs for a plant, but also eliminates many out-of-specification issues generated by the use of failing sensors. And when automation is implemented to manage sensor maintenance, it also improves operator safety by limiting human exposure at measurement points.
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