Blister Pack Stacking

This line unrolls flat material for blister pack bases, vacuum forms the indents and cuts the bases into 1000mm long X 200mm wide trays. The indents are then filled with a drug and the bases are conveyed down the line through a tunnel at -150°C, 5 abreast.

Our system detects the leading tray and extracts it from the end of the freeze tunnel with a 2M long chiselled blade of PTFE complete with a barb to retract it fast. The 5 blades are dovetailed between station pieces of PTFE so that a flat surface enables the frozen bases to be pushed sideways. This is achieved with a magnetically actuated PTFE encased pusher from underneath the extractor table.

The trays are collated in a stack about 100m high. When this is built the pack is pushed into a shoebox in 3 moving carriers. In plan these move around a a 4 position matrix so that one is always in position, one is waiting and the third is ready for the shoeboxes to be unloaded. When in the load position the carrier presents its highest apperture and raises as each is filled. The shoeboxes are presntly designed to be unloaded manually through an automatically signalling slot and flap.

The entire unit is insulated behind double skined stainless steel panels with double glazed windows. Its internal temperature must stay below -60°C and is cooled with liquid nitrogen. The entire unit is mounted on air skates to enable it to be moved from the end of the freeze tunnel for maintenance and cleaning. 

The product is taken to soak in a chill freezer before being film capped and cut up into useable sizes.

www.pfizer.co.uk

Video 1 - Blister pack Base stacking

The following video is a future possibility of fully automating the entire process with a number of chill freezers which are loaded and unloaded automatically.

Video 2 - The future...

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