A Sustainable Future – Water and Energy Conservation in the Pharmaceutical Industry

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EDL Anlagenbau Gesellschaft mbH

Italvacuum, Srl

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Microbial contamination is key to current technology system design

Water is used widely during the production of pharmaceutical products as a direct ingredient as well as indirect uses such as formulation, rinsing, sanitising and cleaning. Most high quality makeup water systems used within pharmaceutical production have some element of recirculation inherent in the system design. When water is not needed, water systems typically go into a re-circulating standby mode to control microbial proliferation within the water and on the wetted surfaces of the water system. This conventional approach has been used for decades and has been considered the best ‘in situ’ approach for controlling microbial contamination.

Often, microbial contamination is the most difficult and costly aspect of the water system design. While chemical and organic impurities can usually be managed with little difficulty, proliferation of bacteria, viruses and other organisms can challenge even the best system designs. In an effort to build robustness into the water systems of a pharmaceutical facility, many of these systems are built with a 2 x 100 percent redundancy approach. This ensures the water system is always available when needed. All water systems require periodic maintenance monitoring and adjustments, and a redundant water system approach allows one train to be available while the other train is being serviced or maintained. This redundant water train will continually re-circulate while in the standby mode, and will consume water and electricity, and produce wastewater, nearly 100 percent of the time since it is by nature a standby or backup system.

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