Sanitary Mechanical Seal

Is a Sanitary Mechanical Seal suitable for Aseptic Processes?

An aseptic process is one that requires a sterile environment and a sanitary mechanical seal installation could well be a part of it.

For a mechanical seal to become sanitary the seal must be cleaned in a way
that assures that harmful organisms have been purged from all surfaces, cracks, pools, and reservoirs that naturally exist in mechanical seals. Some of the methods used to produce a sanitary condition in a mechanical seal can cause damage to the sealing surfaces or the materials from which the seal is made. The sanitary mechanical seal designer must take care to understand the cleaning method to be used and thus design the seal configuration and materials to tolerate those conditions.

There are 2 aseptic processes; Biotechnology Processing and Fill Finish.

In the case of Biotechnology processing, it specifically processes living organisms. These living organisms are grown in tanks and vessels where they are fed nutrients and oxygen at an optimum rate for growth and reproduction. The vessel conditions during processing are not demanding and well within the capabilities of some lower technology seal. However, the actual seal design is critical that it takes into account CIP and SIP between batches without having to remove the actual seal and maintain the suitably low bio-burden condition of the equipment.

A properly designed seal will increase the repeatability of CIP and SIP while minimizing downtime of the equipment. This is even more important for the bottom entry mixer configuration which tends to be a standard in the bioprocessing industry.