Vacuum Tray Drying made Easy

Although more advanced drying methods have been developed in the pharmaceutical industry, vacuum tray dryer technology remains an essential method with processes/products that are delicate or fragile when exposed to mechanical forces.

Our CakeStand™ vacuum tray dryer technology relies on a fully sealed vacuum chamber and direct heating shelves for optimum drying conditions and uniformity.

PSL tray dryers can operate in downflow booths, clean rooms or in conjunction with PSL containment isolators. A number of design features have also been incorporated into CakeStand™ for ease of use and product protection.

CakeStand™ Vacuum Tray Dryers - Front

Features and Benefits

An All-In-One Solution

With drying uniformity being critical to a consistent high-quality end-product, PSL’s CakeStand™ Tray Dryers feature a vacuum chamber combined with direct heated shelves – with validated uniform heating of +/-1°C across the shelves – to ensure you meet even your most stringent batch processing requirements.

Initially designed for the pharmaceutical industry, our Cakestand™ Tray Dryers carry features which comply with cGMP.
  • Suspended shelves to avoid creating product trap or product “pockets” which are difficult to clean.
  • Full metallic internal product contact parts with controlled surface finish and edge and corner radiuses for easy cleaning validation
  • Front Flat Metallic Door for easy clean down in Clean Room / Isolator Environments.
  • Utility connections points suitably located to be excluded from Process Room is mounted as a through wall configuration, thus allowing easy maintenance.

Our Cakestand™ Tray Dryers can be provided as stand-alone equipment for client / third party integration or in combination with a Software and Automation package.

The PSL automation platform allows drug manufacturers to pre-design and pre-load software process recipes incorporating the relevant process parameters suitable for their specific production requirements. Hence adding speed and flexibility to their manufacturing processes.

PSL can comply to the major international practices and regulations for software automation, including GAMP5 (Good Automated Manufacturing Practice, version 5 by ISPE) and 21 CFR Part 11 established by the US FDA for electronic records and signatures.

Although the drying phase within a Vacuum Tray Dryer will require no physical operator intervention, the loading and unloading of the product trays remains manual. If the product is potent/toxic as it is often the case within pharmaceutical applications with API or HPAPI, these steps need to be contained.

Several containment measures can apply depending on the product classification and our Cakestand™ Tray Dryers are versatile enough to be integrated with most of them:

  • As stand alone within a downflow booth.
  • Integrated to the back wall of a downflow booth to minimize the footprint into the valuable air-swept area.
  • Integrated to the back wall of an isolator – in this configurationm, Tray Dryer size restrictions may apply due to the ergonomic challenges of working through Gloves. PSL’s expertise in designing containment isolators will guide you through these aspects.

Applications and Options

Typical number of Shelves 2 4 / 6 4 / 6 4 / 6 / 8 6 / 12
Useful Shelf Area (min / max) (m²) 0.2 0.25 / 0.375 0.8 / 1.2 3.1 / 4.6 / 6.2 6.8 / 13.60
Chamber Volume 40L 85L 160L 1000L 2500L
Downflow Booth Integration Yes
PSL GloveBox Integration Yes No

Other configurations available upon request, please liaise with your PSL point of contact.

Resources

Cakestand Tray Dryer Brochure Cover

CakeStand™ Brochure