The presence of all four competence areas at the recent Achema trade fair was a winning formula for the Glatt Group.
The TwinPro pharmaceutical plant, which combines two batch processes, was honored with the Achema Innovation Award, and the Process Technology Food, Feed & Fine Chemicals competence area displayed a novel compact plant concept for powder agglomeration, which can be installed and ready for operation in just 12 days.
Nowadays, anyone who wants to instantise a beverage powder or bring effervescent vitamin tablets to market quickly will be able to deliver in as little as six month. Such was the take-home message from the Glatt team at Achema.
The short construction time and 12 day installation period for the new GF ModFlex fluid bed compact plant for continuous spray agglomeration was a central theme within the Process Technology Food, Feed & Fine Chemicals division.
Sales Manager Lutz Heinzl, commented: “We had trade visitors from 70 countries, including notable numbers from well-known companies in Asia, Russia, North Africa and South America, in addition to companies from Europe."
"They were impressed by the wide range of services offered by the entire Group. Important topics in our field were food applications such as encapsulated probiotics or granulated spices, mixtures of spray agglomerated ingredients, or sugar and sugar substitutes whose solubility behavior can be optimized by coating.”
The ProCell LabSystem mobile laboratory was, once again, one of the most popular exhibits. It enables product developers from the food, feed and fine chemicals sectors to test their ideas in every possible fluid bed and spouted bed process and to determine optimum parameters to achieve the desired functionality.
A presentation by Dirk Steinhäuser, Vice Head of the Dresden branch of Glatt Ingenieurtechnik, on modular plant concepts for biotechnological and pharmaceutical active ingredient production was also very well attended. He explained flexible system design using the 'right first time” principle and illustrated how this could be implemented according to local requirements by means of real projects.
"My personal highlights were talking about our new process for phosphate recovery from sewage sludge ash and the planning service inquiries we received," summarised Lutz Heinzl.
"The high level of interest has once again confirmed that the expertise and experience of our Process & Plant Engineering division in process and factory planning is in demand worldwide," he said.