Saving Resources

So that pure Water does not become a Luxury Good

Water is a precious and limited commodity, especially in its pure form. Highly sterile water (WFI) is used for cleaning vials. The production of WFI is complex and expensive. Reducing water consumption is an important issue for us and our customers. Saving water in the long term reduces costs and protects the environment.

Optima is pursuing several approaches to reduce water consumption at the washing machine. Special water nozzles have
already been used for many years for the internal cleaning of vials. In addition, the WFI used for final cleaning is collected once, filtered, and reheated. This water is used for pre-cleaning the vials. The washing area is divided in such a way that collected WFI is reused once. This ensures that the water quality does not drop and the cleaning performance always remains the same.

A new approach is to increase the hydromechanical cleaning effect of water. A water jet loses its strong mechanical cleaning effect shortly after it hits the glass surface. This is where the new approach comes in. New energy in the form of additional compressed air is introduced into the system. The flow off rinse water is captured by the air jet and sets the water into a fast, approximate spiral movement. The special nozzle needle was developed and optimized by means of simulations carried out with high-performance computers. Real tests showed that water consumption could be reduced by up to 45 percent compared to the conventional variant.