BUCK® MC Containment Valves

Features and Benefits

The BUCK® MC Valve builds on the proven design principles of the first generation of split butterfly valves and offers a number of key additional features and benefits:

• Unique passive-to-passive valve design with a centralized actuation ring; the passive valves freely orientate, reducing operator docking error
• Modular design to allow flexible and customized solutions for every requirement, built from standard components
• Modular containment: with a 1–10 μg/m³ (STTWA) containment level offered as standard, the system is also available with an advanced air cleaning actuator to further improve containment levels down to <1 μg/m³ (STTWA).
• Simple maintenance: fewer component parts and more identical parts owing to the passive-to-passive design, reducing spare part inventory 
• WIP, CIP and COP as standard
• Rapid, contained changeover of the contaminated valve core with working parts remaining on the station, allowing for extremely fast product changeover – fully complementing other fast change-over concepts in our range, such as the ECM concept of our pharmaceutical tablet presses !
• Robust docking: the new central actuation ring design and compensator device overcomes potential misalignment of the container and docking station.

Technical Specifications: Product-contact parts

• Metal parts are available in stainless steel 1.4404/316L
  or Hastelloy 2.4602/C22 (on request). 
• Elastomers are available in EPDM white, EPDM black antistatic
  and FKM nature (white). 
• Surface roughness for metal parts (non-coated) is Ra < 0.5 µm.
• Surface qualities are available in mechanically polished, electropolished
  or PTFE coated. 

Technical Specifications: Non-product-contact parts

• Metal parts are made of stainless Steel 1.4301/304 (or higher)
  or aluminum anodized. 
• Plastic parts are made of POM, PEEK and PA.
• Surface roughness for metal parts is Ra < 1.6 µm.

Containment issues are becoming an increasingly important aspect of solid dosage form production, especially for highly potent and toxic active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for hormone and oncology applications. 

With a more intense focus on health and safety, avoiding both operator exposure and preventing cross-contamination is critical. For contained solid powder transfer, the solution is BUCK®.

Based on the success of the BUCK® MC (modular containment) valve, GEA is taken a bold step forward and further enhancing the ease of use and convenience of its DN100/150 actuator ring. 

The new BUCK® Lite portable actuator ring retains the key advantages of the original MC actuator ring, including free orientation during docking, fast product changeovers, simple operation, maintenance and cleaning, and also comprises identical half valves for both sides of the docking station. In addition, the same unit can be used to dock several different processes. It’s also compatible with existing BUCK® MC half valves.

Offering the same functionality as the previous version, GEA has succeeded in making the actuator ring even more compact and lightweight. It weighs just 3.3 kg, which makes the entire unit easier to handle and implement. GEA has the health and welfare of your operators in mind, not to mention process optimization and productivity.

Key Benefits

• containment levels of 1–10 μg/m³ (STTWA)
• weight reduction of 64%
• customizable hand lever position
• reduced number of parts
• rapid disassembly for cleaning, if required
• simple and robust
• cost-effective.