A partner in drying and filtration for pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries

Part of the HEINKEL Drying and Separation Group (HDSG), COMBER manufactures complete lines of drying and filtration for process industries. The company is now present at ACHEMA 2018, Hall 5.0 – Stand B8.

Since 55 years COMBER manufactures complete lines of drying and filtration for the peculiar requirements of the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries, becoming in time a leader supplier of filter Nutsche, filter dryers under pressure and batch dryers in full vacuum.

This kind of equipment are applied in:

Since 2010 COMBER is part of the HEINKEL Drying and Separation Group (HDSG), which includes three companies (COMBER Process Technology S.r.l., Agrate; BOLZ Process Technology GmbH, Wangen; HEINKEL Process Technology GmbH, Besigheim), for a total of 170 employees.

HDSG Group has an international vocation and is present with its own branches in North America, China, India, Singapore, Czech Republic and production plants in Italy, Germany and China, boasts one of the most complete process machines for pharmaceutical industry (API), fine chemicals and specialties. Whether as a group or individually, companies have a reputation for specific areas of expertise.

Comber joined the HDSG group following the acquisition in 2010 by a Dutch financial company, Stibbe Partecipaties, which is active in the acquisition of companies generally operating in industrial sectors. In particular, the HDSG group was formed over the years 2005/2010 with the acquisition of Heinkel (2005) and subsequently Ellerwerke / GFT / Heine (all merged with Heinkel) and Comber (2010). Bolz was already present since 1995.

Headquartered in Stuttgart (D), Heinkel is the supplier that first developed the inverting filter centrifuge technology, and is in this industry the undisputed world leader; its production range is completed with horizontal centrifuges (peeler), vertical centrifuges and classifiers.

Bolz, based in Wangen (D), is known for its “Nauta” conical vertical dryers, while Jongia (NL) is, in the group, the company with experience in agitation systems both in the food (brewery, dairy, etc.) and industrial (Oil & Gas, etc.) sectors

Founded in 1960, Comber is now based in Agrate (Milan) and has a long long history of success behind it, is a supplier of “Nutsche” pressure filters, drying filters and discontinuous vacuum dryers, such as:

In more recent years, the following technologies have been developed

Comber’s membership in the HDSG group has allowed for easier expansion in non-EU countries. The company has been present in North America since the mid-1990s and in China since the late 1990s. The opening of the Chinese plant has the effect of a rapid increase in sales in the South East Asian market. In 2017 Comber returned to its 2009 pre-crisis turnover levels.

A special attention to end users’ requirements

Giovanni Bellini, General Manager of COMBER Precess Technology, says: “Comber’s attention to end users has a central role. We study the Customer’s specific requests (URS), make subsequent offer, negotiation, contract, sending for approval drawings and technical specifications, construction, assembly, test , FAT, delivery, assembly, start-up. Comber directly follows all the phases from the initial offer to the on-site start-up.

Since most customers are producers of active ingredients (APIs) and therefore majors in pharmaceutical sector or their subcontractors, the plants supplied are subject to strict controls by the FDA or similar national authorities (AIFA in Italy). It is therefore essential to provide the facilities with all the necessary documentation and certification.

In order to grant total traceability/certification of all materials and production phases, Comber decided to keep under total control, in addition to project, drawings, etc. also the purchase of all raw materials, sheet metal cutting, processing subcontracting only the construction of the “vessels”; testing of the equipment with inspectors (Lloyds, TÜV, etc.) directly managed.

Once all the components have been received, the assembly is carried out in the Comber factory, tested and submitted to FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) usually in the presence of the Customer.

Usually main contractors were the big engineering companies such as Jacobs, Fluor Daniel, Foster Wheeler (now Wood), Technip, etc. Recently we also worked with some smaller and specialized companies. Also in this case the orders come from the final customers: the engineering companies are in fact the technical interlocutors between us and the end customer.”

Many machines supplied with success

There are many examples of machines supplied with success by Comber to the final customer. Bellini comments: “A success story that we always like to remember was the use of a Comber vacuum dryer model Pharmadry® for drying liquid crystals. We all remember the enormous development of liquid crystals in televisions, monitors for mobile phones, videos of navi-devices, etc. The need therefore arose for a large industrial production based on technology developed on a pilot scale.

In short, thanks to a close collaboration with the end customer and to several successive process optimizations, a “standard” equipment has been defined for the specific application. We can affirm that a large quantity of liquid crystals produced in the world is dried on Comber dryers.

Another niche application is in filtration in the “peptides” sector.

Another application from which we expect discrete and long-lasting results is the drying of radioactive waste, in particular sodium diuranate.”

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