CHEMICAL & PROCESS – HAND SANITISER
the manufacture and supply of biocidal
hand sanitiser products in the UK on the
understanding that companies
meet their responsibilities
in protecting people and
the environment from the
potentially harmful e ects
of chemicals.
In addition, Brewdog says
it is vital to fully understand
end-user requirements,
describing getting up to speed
with NHS regulations as “very tough”.
This task extended from what packaging
information is mandatory to agreeing the
gel speci cations.
Then there is the 72-hour hold. As
Brewdog is lling the bottles manually,
they are subject to a 72-hour sterility
hold before shipment. Government
advice on cleaning in non-healthcare
settings states that the infection risk
from Covid following contamination of
the environment decreases over time
(www.is.gd/elofat). And although it is not
yet clear at what point there is no risk,
studies of other viruses suggest that, in
most circumstances, the risk is likely to
be reduced signi cantly after 72 hours.
This strategy ensures the nal packs are
completely sterile before they go into
any medical environment.
FOUR DAYS
Of course, plenty
of other businesses
aside from distilleries and
breweries have entered the hand
sanitiser market, not least consumer
goods giant, Unilever. The company has
adapted a deodorant manufacturing line
at its Leeds factory to produce muchneeded
NHS supplies.
Unilever says that it is thanks to
the e orts of employees and the rapid
response of suppliers – with materials,
packaging and labels – that it was able to
scale up hand sanitiser manufacture from
laboratory trials to factory production in
just four days.
As well as working on product
formulation, Unilever had to check that
all necessary safety measures were
in place, and that its equipment was
sanitised. The company then sourced
more than 10,000 bulk containers of raw
materials and packaging,
INEOS delivers on 10 day promise Manufacturing company INEOS announced in March that it had hit its 10
day target to build a new hand sanitiser plant near Middlesbrough, UK,
and has started producing 1 million hand sanitisers a month
(www.is.gd/ehulon).
With a shortage of hand sanitisers across the UK and Europe, the
company is focusing on meeting the needs of front-line medical and care
services, as well as making ‘pocket bottle’ hand sanitisers available for people’s personal
use. They are produced to World Health Organisation speci cations.
Speaking at the time, Sir Jim Ratcli e, founder and chairman of INEOS, said: “Now
that production of the INEOS hand sanitiser has started, we are working on the fastest
way to get them to where they need to be. I am con dent that within a few days our
sanitiser will start to be seen in hospitals, surgeries and people’s homes”.
The company has also gone on to build additional hand sanitiser plants in Germany
and France.
which arrived at Leeds within hours.
And yet pivoting to hand sanitiser
production is not just for the
multinationals, as Kevin Wheeler, MD
at Hampshire-based chemical dosing
systems specialist WES (inset), can
con rm. “The idea came about because
we had been experiencing challenges
in sourcing a supply of sanitiser for our
sta , to ensure they could continue key
production work,” he says.
WES bought in the ingredients and
adapted existing equipment that it
normally hires to clients or uses for
in-house training. The company then set
about designing the process to mix the
constituents and batch into small bottles.
“For mixing, we use two di erent
chemical dosing pumps, set as master
and slave,” explains Wheeler. “The
rst, a digital diaphragm pump, is set
to batch a predetermined quantity of
alcohol. The second pump, a peristaltic
model chosen to handle the very
viscous aloe vera gel, is set to
run after receiving a signal from
the diaphragm pump. This setup
allows accurate but di erent
quantities of the individual
constituents to be delivered over
the same batch time into the
mixing container.”
He adds: “After giving the
resulting mixture time to settle out the
residue, we use the same peristatic
pump, set in a batch mode initiated on a
button press, to deliver quantities that
match the size of the receiving bottles.”
As well as making hand sanitiser for its
sta , WES has been making donations to
charities and deserving causes around
the Basingstoke area.
34 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Autumn 2020
/elofat)
/ehulon)
/www.operationsengineer.org.uk