Water For Injection (WFI) is regarded as the most stringent pure water quality standard in the pharmacopoeia. Traditionally obtained by hot distillation of a pre-purified water stream, it contains extremely low levels of bacteria, endotoxins, total organic carbon and conductivity.
Since 2017, the European Pharmacopoeia added membranes to the list of acceptable technologies for the obtention of WFI; thus opening the door to a new era of “Cold WFI” purification. Membrane-based alternative processes offer equivalent treated water quality and operational robustness, while eliminating the need to distill the water – which represents the largest portion of the “Hot WFI” carbon footprint. We also estimate that the resulting operational expenditure is three-fold lower than with traditional stills.
Pioneers of the Ecological Transformation, Veolia Water Technologies (VWT) adapted their flagship ORION™ water purifier to enable this transition within a cGMP-, FDA-compliant, world-class pharmaceutical water purification package. The new range of systems now includes high-recovery Reverse Osmosis (RO), Hot Water Sanitisation (HWS) to minimise the risk of biofilm formation, and all the optional advantages of the ORION™; coupled with the superior efficiency and sustainability benefits of Ultrafiltration (UF).
VWT recently supplied a new ORION™-S Mk3 unit for Parker Hannifin’s Bioscience Filtration Facility in Birtley. Building on a successful existing relationship, the new unit delivers 20,000 L/hr of Cold WFI and has enabled the customer to increase production, reduce risk, and drastically improve the sustainability of their operations.
Whereas most traditional RO-based systems have a ~75% water recovery (thus rejecting ~25% of the feed water to drain), our ORION™-S Mk3 offers an overall system efficiency of ~90% thanks to a set of effluent recovery systems. The feed water composition (and the resulting ionic balance of the concentrate) must be precisely understood, to achieve such a high recovery. This is analogous to saving the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool (2,500 m³ of water) every year, for a theoretical demand of 1,500 m³ of WFI per month.
Furthermore, pure water must always be kept in circulation – both in the distribution loop, but also within the generation system. This minimises the chances of bacterial adhesion on any water-contacting surfaces. During periods of low usage, this recycling within the purifier can lead to heat ingress and unnecessary power consumption from the high-pressure pumps. This is why the ORION™-S Mk3 reduces flow and pressures by 50% in recycle mode, which leads to significant energy savings. In addition, a cooling heat exchanger on the concentrate return removes the need to send recycled water to drain altogether, keeping the system in a closed loop until fresh permeate is needed.
Going beyond product features, our solution also includes a bulk salt saturator which eliminates the need to manually load bags of salt in the brine tank. This is both a major Health and Safety advantage from a manual handling standpoint, and a further improvement on the utility costs associated with WFI generation.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: the ORION™-S Mk3, like all our other Pharmaceutical assets, is fully integrated within our Hubgrade™ remote monitoring platform. A comprehensive set of captors and sensors communicates real-time information on all water treatment stages to our secure cloud-based portal. This enables our water treatment experts to digitally monitor equipment health, perform remote diagnostics, and shift towards predictive maintenance. This outcome-based service model further increases the reliability of WFI production at site, and strengthens the relationship between our teams.
This recent installation is a testament to Parker Hannifin’s commitment to the Ecological Transformation: pursuing a goal of 50% Reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 Carbon emissions by 2030, whilst putting Water conservation, Clean technologies and Waste reduction at the heart of their ESG strategy. VWT are extremely proud of their contribution to this exemplary trajectory, through state-of-the-art products and technologies supported by a pioneering service delivery model. In the words of Nathan Ryder, Facilities & Maintenance Manager at Parker Hannifin:
“The project was a big undertaking. It required the construction of a new building to house the ORION™ as well as new control panels for our four ring mains that feed the factory. Veolia Water Technologies was a logical choice because we already have a solid and well-established relationship with them, and we know the technology delivers. What’s more, we were impressed by the technology and its efficient use of resources. This enables us to better serve our customers by increasing production, whilst reducing our water and energy consumption”.