Richter Gedeon Nyrt., Budapest, 2017
In 2017, for the 7th time, the employees of Richter Gedeon were honored for their outstanding innovative teamwork. The RITA Award (Richter Innovative Knowledge Foundation Award and Archive) is given to projects that provide solutions to practical problems through teamwork and innovation.
At the Richter Gedeon plant in Dorog, solvent recovery has been successfully carried out for over ten years. Although solvent recovery is not the plant's main activity, it plays a crucial role in steroid-based active pharmaceutical ingredient production, alongside core technologies such as chromatographic purification, crystallization, and micronization. The regenerated solvent mixtures are exclusively used within the plant. In recent years, the demand for active ingredients produced with chromatographic purification in one of their phases has gradually increased. As the demand for chromatographed products rises, so does the plant's solvent requirements and internal solvent circulation. In 2016, for example, more than 1,200 tons of solvent mixtures were regenerated. Ensuring this requires significant recovery and internal storage capacity, and it necessitates improving the productivity and flexibility of the solvent regeneration process as a supplementary technological operation.
The goal was to further develop the solvent recovery process, which indirectly contributes to increasing the chromatographic capacity of the hall. Furthermore, we aimed to create the conditions necessary for the parallel purification of two different raw active ingredients or intermediates.
We aimed to establish independent solvent recovery production lines, which we successfully achieved. Based on the new concept, we developed a solution that enables the simultaneous production of two chromatographed products, thereby increasing the plant’s productivity and flexibility alongside expanded capacity. The software control of the tanks, communication and cooperation with auxiliary tanks, as well as the high-level batch recipe tour, were programmed into the existing ABB 800xA process control system. The complex solution presented in the proposal consisted of several factors. The most important of these were: assessment of resources and opportunities, implementation of technological changes, installation of new mixing tanks, inclusion of existing tanks, automation of processes, alternative equipment usage, etc.
The implemented idea and work received the RITA Award recognition. Contro-Net Ltd., as an external partner, participated in the project and assisted in fulfilling the control, recipe creation, and other software development needs.