With the BRC 25 roller compactor, which premiered at Interpack 2014 in Düsseldorf, machine builder L.B. Bohle Maschinen + Verfahren GmbH rounds off its granulation solutions.
The BRC 25 is the smaller version of the BRC 100, which has already proven itself on the market.
Easy handling, continuous production and a small footprint are some of the key features of this roller compactor. Continuous dry granulation has been used in the pharmaceutical industry for decades. An advantage of dry granulation compared with classic wet granulation is that no energy intensive drying processes are needed.
Therefore, customers won't need to invest as much in machines and production rooms, resulting in lower costs per batch. In addition, operating costs are reduced as no additional power consumption is required for drying. Plus, with the compacting process, higher material throughputs are possible. All of this results in having one machine that can produce different products and batch sizes.
The BRC concept: In the roller compactor, powders are processed into free-flowing granules. The aim is to process a granule with a defined density or porosity for immediate pelletising after compacting.
The powder is compacted between two rollers with specified gap widths (1–6 mm). The impact on the rollers, as well as the gap width, is monitored by sensors. The acquired data are integrated into a control circuit to ensure a continuous process quality. The electromotor drive is essential to ensure very precise and fast process control.
The chopper unit below the compacting rollers processes flakes into a granule with a defined size. The unit is equipped with a conical sieve with replaceable inserts for different particle sizes.
Through targeted research and development, the BRC dry granulator technology has been tailored to meet customers requirements. Thus, the BRC delivers in terms of ease-of-use, control, cleaning and hygienic design.
Furthermore, with no hydraulic technology, the BRC is extremely low maintenance. Because of the WIP equipment (included as standard) and the easy-to-remove components, cleaning can be done in 2 h.
During the development of the BRC series, Bohle engineers focused on making scale-up as easy as possible. Both the BRC 25 and BRC 100 have identical roller geometries and control systems. BRC series dry granulators are available in service centres in Germany and the USA for tests and trials.
