Testing Laboratories Use Special Small Scale Vessels and Tanks

Chemical and pharmaceutical products are helpful in people’s daily lives. But before they hit the shelves or are used as an ingredient for another product, there’s a detailed process that transpires in a manufacturing facility. From custom reactor vessels to stainless steel tanks, a chemical manufacturing plant that produces such products uses a complex variety of machines to facilitate quality assurance. 

Before fully producing a chemical or a pharmaceutical product, manufacturers also conduct small-scale production tests first. They rely on high pressure vessels and tanks to assess a product’s quality and safety by performing necessary modifications accordingly. 

Reaction Chambers

Custom reactor vessels are secure chambers in which a chemical reaction occurs. Chemical reactions such as oxidation-reduction (or the transfer of electrons between two species) and hydrolysis (which involves the reaction of a water-containing organic chemical to produce new substances) are critical parts of many product development processes — especially in the field of pharmaceuticals and food and beverages, among others. 

Process tank manufacturers for labs and QA departments employ modern and sophisticated custom pressure vessels to aid industry manufacturers in testing products without contaminating the particles or substances. 

A reaction chamber is generally composed of the following:

An injector head

A catalyst bed

An upstream plenum mixing portion

A downstream exhaust plenum

An upstream and downstream temperature and over-temperature control

Before they’re made available in the market, these reaction chambers themselves are also tested first to evaluate if they can withstand different catalyst configurations. The chambers, which are essentially a network of heat exchangers, contain catalysts or substances needed to ensure that a certain chemical reaction occurs. 

Stainless Steel Tanks

Process tank manufacturers recognize that there are many applications of stainless steel tanks — from storing ingredients to mixing of substances. They design and build these tanks to be durable so that they to handle the many tasks that it will perform. 

They are also available in various sizes, depending on their function.

For instance, the standard size of a storage tank ranges from 1,000 to 50,000 gallons; 100 to 10,000 gallons for mixing tanks; 100 to 500 gallons for clean-in place tanks (these tanks are used to clean interior surfaces of process pipes and vessels); 100 to 300 gallons for clean-out-of-place tanks (tanks that are in charge of cleaning process items like valves and hoses that CIP tanks can’t clean). 

This range of tanks are part of a system that handles small-scale production tests in a manufacturing plant. Apart from the size, they also come with various designs to cater to the different needs of different manufacturers. As an isostatic press manufacturer, we can also help with pulverizing equipment and pilot plant reactors.

These tanks can be single-shelled, insulated or jacketed tank. They can have a cone-shaped or a flat-pitched bottom designs. If these will be used in conjunction with other product testing components, they can also have a heat transfer jacket on one side and a vessel at the bottom. Their top and side entries can also be configured to match a manufacturing plant’s requirements. 

This level of customizability allows process tank manufacturers in PA create a system that best suits their needs. Ultimately, it helps in facilitating small-scale testing, which are crucial to the quality, potency, and safety of a final product.