Purified Water Equipment for Traditional Chinese Medicine Decoction Piece Pharmaceutical Factory

Traditional Chinese Medicine Decoction Pieces Pharmaceutical Factory Purified Water Equipment

Process Introduction

I. Raw Water Pretreatment Process

Raw Water Intake The raw water for traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces pharmaceutical factories typically comes from municipal water supply or self-provided water sources. The raw water first enters the raw water tank, which serves as a buffer and storage unit, ensuring the stability of raw water supply during subsequent treatment processes and avoiding system impacts due to water supply fluctuations. Multi-Media Filtration The raw water is pumped from the raw water tank to the multi-media filter.

The multi-media filter is filled with various filtration media such as quartz sand and anthracite. Its principle involves using the particle size and pore structure of these media to remove large-particle impurities like suspended solids, colloids, sediment, and rust from the raw water through physical and adsorption actions. This step is crucial for protecting subsequent precision filtration and reverse osmosis equipment, effectively preventing clogging and damage to membrane modules and extending the equipment's service life.

Activated Carbon Filtration Water that has undergone multi-media filtration enters the activated carbon filter. Activated carbon has a developed pore structure and a large specific surface area, enabling it to adsorb residual chlorine, organic matter, some heavy metal ions, and odorous substances in the water. In the production of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces, removing residual chlorine prevents oxidative damage to reverse osmosis membranes, while the removal of organic matter and odorous substances helps improve the quality of purified water and reduces potential impacts on the quality of the decoction pieces.

Softening Treatment (Optional) Depending on the quality of the raw water, softening treatment may be required. If the raw water has high hardness, with high levels of calcium, magnesium, and other ions, scaling may occur in subsequent equipment and pipelines, affecting the normal operation of the equipment and the quality of purified water. Softeners typically use ion exchange resins, where sodium ions exchange with calcium and magnesium ions in the water, thereby reducing water hardness.

II. Reverse Osmosis (RO) Process Security Filtration Before entering the reverse osmosis system, the pretreated water passes through a security filter. The security filter contains filter cartridges with a precision of 5μm or smaller, which further remove any remaining fine particles in the water, ensuring that the water entering the reverse osmosis membrane modules meets a certain level of cleanliness. This prevents large particles from scratching the surface of the reverse osmosis membranes and protects their integrity.

Primary Reverse Osmosis Water that has undergone security filtration enters the primary reverse osmosis unit. Reverse osmosis is a membrane separation technology driven by pressure difference, where a certain pressure is applied on both sides of a semi-permeable membrane, allowing water to pass through while retaining impurities such as salts. During the primary reverse osmosis process, most salts, organic matter, bacteria, viruses, and other impurities are removed from the water, significantly reducing the conductivity of the produced water and markedly improving water quality. The material and performance of the reverse osmosis membrane are critical to the water production quality and operational stability of the entire system. Commonly used reverse osmosis membranes include polyamide composite membranes.

Secondary Reverse Osmosis For traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces production that requires higher purified water quality, a secondary reverse osmosis unit can be installed after the primary reverse osmosis. The secondary reverse osmosis further removes the small amounts of salts and other impurities remaining in the water produced by the primary reverse osmosis, further enhancing the purity of the purified water and ensuring that the water meets the stringent requirements of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces pharmaceutical processes. Parameters such as the operating pressure of the secondary reverse osmosis need to be adjusted based on the quality of the water produced by the primary reverse osmosis.

III. Post-Treatment Process Mixed Bed Ion Exchange (Optional) If higher purity purified water is required after reverse osmosis treatment, mixed bed ion exchange can be used for deep desalination. The mixed bed ion exchange unit contains both anion and cation exchange resins, which are uniformly mixed and perform ion exchange reactions simultaneously in the same column. Residual ions in the water exchange with the exchangeable ions on the resins as they pass through the mixed bed, further removing trace ions from the water. This significantly increases the resistivity of the purified water, approaching the level of theoretical pure water, and meets the extremely stringent water quality requirements for traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces production, such as certain extraction and formulation processes that demand very high water purity.

UV Sterilization To eliminate any remaining microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses in the water and ensure the microbiological safety of purified water during storage and use, a UV sterilization unit is typically installed in the post-treatment stage of purified water preparation. UV irradiation can damage the DNA structure of microorganisms, rendering them incapable of reproduction and survival. UV sterilization offers advantages such as fast sterilization speed and no chemical residues, playing an important role in ensuring the sanitary quality of pharmaceutical water for traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces.

Ultrafiltration (Optional) In some cases, ultrafiltration can be used as one of the post-treatment processes. Ultrafiltration membranes can retain macromolecular organic matter, colloids, bacteria, and other substances in the water while allowing small molecules and water to pass through. For traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces pharmaceutical factories, ultrafiltration can further remove potential pyrogenic substances from the water, preventing adverse effects on drug quality, while also improving the clarity and stability of the purified water.

IV. Purified Water Storage and Distribution System Purified Water Storage The prepared purified water is stored in purified water storage tanks. The tanks are typically made of high-quality stainless steel with smooth inner surfaces to prevent bacterial growth and impurity adsorption. The tanks need to be equipped with accessories such as breathers and level gauges. Breathers prevent external air from directly entering the tank and contaminating the purified water, while level gauges monitor the water level in the tank, ensuring stable and monitorable water supply.

Distribution System Purified water is distributed from the storage tank to various points of use in the traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces production workshop through sanitary-grade pipelines. The distribution pipelines are designed in a loop to ensure that the purified water is always flowing within the pipelines, preventing the formation of stagnant sections that could lead to microbial growth. The pipeline system requires regular cleaning and disinfection. Common disinfection methods include hot water disinfection and chemical disinfectant disinfection, ensuring the cleanliness and hygiene of the entire distribution system and guaranteeing that the purified water delivered to each point of use meets the requirements for traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces production.